


something you cannot replace

by intolauren



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, also i swear this isn’t a twilight au, the fluff is HERE i told you, the fluff is coming i swear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-03-31 21:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13984074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intolauren/pseuds/intolauren
Summary: There's something about Kara Danvers that both intrigues and intimidates Lena Luthor from the moment they meet.And it doesn't seem to matter how many times Kara tells Lena to stay away from her, tells her that she's dangerous, tells her that she loses control sometimes, tells her that she's hurt people; Lena keeps finding her.They keep finding each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be my Camp NaNoWriMo 2018 story! I have a looooooot of ideas for this fic and I'm so excited to get stuck in. The majority of it will be posted in April but I wanted to get a head start on it and post a chapter or two this month. I hope you enjoy the ride with me! 
> 
> (Sidenote: Writing this Kara is so much fun, you have no idea.)
> 
> Please let me know what you think when you're done :)

Lena had told herself at the start of the year, one of her new year's resolutions, if you will, that she was going to start having at least one night a week whenever she could, where she left work at 6pm like everyone else, cooked dinner for herself, watched TV until 11pm and then called it a night. 

And yeah, it had taken a little adjusting to and she hadn’t fully prepared for there to be so much guilt swimming around in her mind for indulging in TV show marathons on Comedy Central or finally getting around to finishing that book she’d been putting off reading for weeks instead of working, but she had stuck with it and eventually she had made it work, and now Tuesday evenings are her designated do-nothing evenings. Because damn it, she deserves it. 

She’s also still getting used to the idea of _deserving things_. That had been one of her other resolutions; being kinder to herself. She’s still working hard on that one, but she’s getting there. Years of never feeling enough for anyone, including herself, don’t just evaporate overnight. And if all she can accept and relish in so far is that she absolutely deserves a night in front of the TV once a week where she doesn’t think about work and she gets at least 7 hours of sleep, then she considers that progress in and of itself. 

So when her phone rings at 7pm on a Tuesday evening in October, she’s already in her sweats and fluffy socks with cats and cute slogans on, looking for the TV remote. 

“Hey, girl! Are you still on for tonight?” Sam asks, sounding cheerful and perhaps already a little drunk. 

“On for what? It’s Tuesday. You know how I feel about leaving the house on Tuesdays,” Lena says, still looking for the TV remote down the side of her couch. 

It’s pretty well known that she doesn’t go out on Tuesdays.

“I knoooow and I’m so proud of you for still sticking to that because you know I think you’re the best person ever and you deserve all the sitcoms and fluffy socks in the world-“ Lena chuckles here, because Sam knows her so well. “-and I really do feel bad for calling on self care Tuesdays but you remember the new bar opening that I told you about, right? The half price drinks all night bar opening I told you about? The let's go get you a girlfriend in that super cool gay bar opening I told you about? Surely you can’t have forgotten?” 

Lena had definitely forgotten. 

“Right! I had completely _not_ forgotten about that.” 

“Lenaaaa…” Sam is _definitely_ at least a little bit drunk. It takes her 3 times as long to say simple words whenever she’s had a couple of glasses of wine. “My daughter is on the other side of the world on a school trip for the next 3 weeks and my girlfriend is working a night shift and I had to sit in a meeting with Morgan Edge for _hours_ today and-“

“Can I just remind you of the 6 digit salary you make to sit in meetings with people like Edge?” Lena laughs.

“There are a lot of 6 digit things I want to shove up his ass,” Sam says, and then she pauses. “And I genuinely have no idea what I meant by that, actually. Lena, I think I’m going crazy. I’ve been alone too long. It’s been 4 days without Ruby and I’m losing it. Pleaaaase come out with me tonight? You might meet the love of your life! You might meet a cute little blonde who is totally not your type and fall head over heels in love with her, and 3 months from now, I could be crying at your wedding!”

Lena rolls her eyes. “And I appreciate your effort and your optimism but I probably won’t be much fun if I go out tonight. I’m exhausted and-“

“Bullshit! You're always fun! So that’s no excuse and I’ll be outside your place in 20 minutes. Make sure you smell nice!” Sam responds, hanging up before Lena can protest any further. 

Cursing under her breath, Lena drops her phone onto the couch. Because it doesn’t matter how many times she tells Sam that she isn’t looking for a girlfriend, that work takes up too much of her time to date someone, that she’s totally out of practice; Sam is persistent. And that is probably just because she’s so infatuated with Alex, and after two months of dating her has made it her mission to make everyone as happy and in love as she is. But the sentiment still stands. And regardless, Lena is definitely kind of mad at Sam for making her go out on a Tuesday, and she has every intention of letting her know that. Although, that probably just means that she’s going to silently curse her in her head all night but show no outwards signs that anything is wrong. Because Lena loves her best friend, and Sam is pretty much one of her _only_ friends, and if going out on a Tuesday will make her best and only friend happy, then that’s what she’ll do. 

Plus, maybe there’s a small part of Lena that thinks Sam is right, and can’t help but admit that maybe meeting someone she could potentially fall head over heels in love with, wouldn't exactly be the worst thing in the world.

 

Entering the bar barely half an hour later, dressed and smelling nice as Sam requested, Lena is already thinking about the moment when it’s time to leave. Mostly because she’s all too aware that she has to be up for work at 5:30am tomorrow, and all of the people inside are dancing and drinking as though it’s Friday. But Sam seems excited, and her excitement is slightly infectious, and when Sam grabs Lena’s hand and pulls her over to the bar, Lena can’t help but smile. 

“What can I get you, ladies?” The bartender yells over the music.

“Shots!” Sam yells back, excitedly nudging Lena’s hip with her own. 

“We’ll just take two gin and tonics, please,” Lena says, narrowing her eyebrows at Sam as she pays for the drinks. “Because you have work tomorrow and I don’t pay you to be hungover at your desk.” 

Sam pouts and crosses her arms over her chest, and Lena just laughs and kisses her cheek, before sliding her drink over to her. 

“I hate it when you’re rational and sensible,” Sam frowns, taking a sip of her drink. 

Lena rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah, because neurotic Lena is so much more fun!”

“I love _all_ Lenas,” she smiles, before downing her drink in one go. “I’m just gonna go to the bathroom. Do you wanna find us a table? If this is the only drink I’m allowed tonight then I might as well resign to sitting and talking like civilised folk.” 

Lena’s still laughing at Sam’s dramatics as she scans the room looking for a table. There aren’t any free, she quickly discovers, and this bar isn’t the kind of bar with an empty VIP section she can pay for. 

The only table with any spare seats at all around it is occupied by a woman, who is sitting alone reading a book. Lena considers how strange it is to be reading in a place like this, where the music is loud and everyone is drunk, when the city library just two blocks away is open 24 hours, but she doesn’t dwell on it too much as she heads over towards her. 

“Excuse me?” Lena says, raising her voice enough to be heard over the music. “Is it okay if my friend and I sit here?” She asks, gesturing to the two empty seats at the girl’s table. 

The girl barely acknowledges Lena, she just scowls softly, somehow looking only mildly and absolutely massively pissed off at the same time, before scooting right to the edge of the table, her eyes barely leaving the page for a second, her long blonde hair falling over her face. 

Sliding almost guiltily into the seat next to her, Lena drops her purse on the table and sips on her drink, silently willing Sam to hurry up and join her at the table.

Lena glances over at the girl again, trying to peek at what she’s reading. Despite the music, she doesn’t seem to be having any trouble concentrating and seeing her so obliviously focused on her book almost makes Lena wish she had her own to read. 

“I can go if you want me to,” the girl says, and Lena jumps, almost embarrassed to have potentially been caught trying to read over her shoulder. 

“No, it’s fine! I don’t want you to go! I mean, you’re not bothering me or anything,” Lena says. “And if anyone should go, it’s me because you were here first. So just let me know if I’m irritating you and I’ll go.” 

The girl looks up then, and regards Lena with an unreadable expression, before shrugging. “You’re not bothering me. I don’t care.” 

She goes back to her book then, effectively ending what was already a very brief conversation, just like that. 

Lena’s taken aback by how pretty she is. Not that she hadn’t expected her to be pretty, because every single woman Lena has ever met has been pretty and every single day she questions how she ever thought she was straight, but this woman is… _beautiful_. Despite her less than friendly demeanour and conversation so far, her face is soft, two blue eyes hiding behind a pair of glasses, light freckles on her cheeks, her complexion perfect and tanned. She looks out of place here, but then again, she looks almost as though she’d look out of place anywhere, and Lena hates herself for staring, but she also can’t seem to be able to look away. 

“Are you sure I’m not bothering you? Because I can feel you staring at me and if that’s your passive aggressive way of telling me to fuck off, then honestly, I can go,” the woman says, not looking up but somehow managing to intimidate Lena anyway, and not for the first time that night, Lena finds herself almost blushing. 

“I’m sorry, I was just- You’re not from around here, are you?” Lena asks, and she doesn’t even know why she asks that, but she hopes the girl doesn’t take it the wrong way. 

“What makes you think that?” 

“You’re just- I haven’t- I’ve never seen you around before,” Lena stutters, and then she curses herself inside her head because she’s well aware that National City has a population of around 2 million people, and it really doesn’t mean anything that she hasn’t seen this woman before. 

The girl looks up then, and there’s a half smile on her face and the slightest trace of amusement in her eyes. 

Lena smiles back, and then just like that, the lightness in the blonde’s eyes is gone and her frown is back. “It’s a big city. And I don’t exactly like to make an impression if I can help it,” she shrugs. 

“You’ve made one on me already,” Lena says, returning the shrug, offering the girl a small smile. 

Something not dissimilar to anger flashes in the girl’s eyes then, her jaw tensing visibly, and Lena swears she sees her grip on her book tighten. But then the girl blinks slowly, and when she returns her gaze to Lena’s, her blank expression is back and her eyes are empty again. 

“Unlucky for you,” the girl says, sounding bored.

Before Lena can respond further, she’s turned back to her book. 

Lena watches her for awhile, trying to be more discreet about it this time, watches her eyes darting backwards and forwards across the page, barely stopping as she turns it. Without pausing her reading, she reaches for her glass, finding it empty. 

“Can I get you another? What are you drinking?” Lena asks her, catching the opportunity. 

“It’s fine,” the girl argues, glancing up at Lena from under her lashes. 

“No seriously. What are you drinking?” Lena smiles. 

She feels nervous smiling at her, and she isn’t sure why. Everything about this woman both intimidates and intrigues Lena. 

“It’s just water. It’s pointless for me to drink anything else,” she says. 

Lena smiles, and quickly heads over to the bar before the girl can argue. She asks the bartender for a glass of water. When she turns around from the bar to head back to the table, she finds the blonde watching her intently, one of her unreadable expressions on her face. 

She doesn’t look away until Lena is sitting back at the table and sliding the drink over to her. 

“You’re the first person to buy me a drink, like ever, you know?” She says, flicking a piece of hair from her eyes. 

Something in the way she says that makes Lena wonder how long she’s been alone. 

Lena wants to point out that the water is free but the girl probably already knows that. So instead she holds out her hand.

“I’m Lena,” she says, smiling warmly. 

The blonde hesitates, just staring at Lena’s hand. 

“Kara,“ she says, monotonously, without taking it.

Lena laughs awkwardly and drops her hand into her lap. “That’s a beautiful name.” 

Kara shrugs again, and it almost amuses Lena, because she’s sure she’s never known anyone who shrugs so much. “It’s just a name. I don’t really think about it,” she says. 

Lena smiles in response, because she doesn’t know what else to say, and she can tell that Kara really doesn’t want to talk anyway because once again, she’s gone back to reading her book. Lena takes out her phone and composes a text to Sam. 

_Where are you???_

**I’m at the bar!! I’ve been here like 5 minutes because you looked like you were getting on well with the cute blonde and I didn’t wanna cockblock**

Lena looks up and after a quick search, spots Sam at the other side of the bar, furthest away from the table she’s sitting at with Kara. When she meets Sam’s eyes, she gives her an angry and slightly panicked look, but Sam pretends not to notice, fakes innocence and looks away. Cursing her best friend under her breath, Lena looks back at her phone.

_She keeps reading her book every time I try to talk to her. In what world does that mean that we’re getting on well?_

_Also, I hate you. So much_

**Gay people are weird, Lena. We, as lesbians, should know that. Just move your hair from off your chest so she can see how great your boobs are and like, tell her one of your dumb jokes. You’ll be married in no time. I’m already picking a wedding outfit inside my head**

**Also, you love me :)**

_You’re the worst. I don’t know why I’m friends with you_

**You’ll thank me one day. Now stop texting me you loser. Talk to her**

_What do I say????_

**God Lena just ask her what she’s reading**

“What are you reading?” Lena asks, before she can tell herself not to, swallowing the rest of her drink in one go. 

She hates that she has work tomorrow, because liquid courage a little stronger than gin would probably be really helpful right now. 

Kara looks up, looks irritated. “Romeo and Juliet. My sister recommended it to me. But it sucks.” 

“If it sucks, then why are you reading it?” 

“Because I just like to read,” she says, and then she snaps her book closed. “I think I’m just gonna head home now.” 

She reaches for her jacket. 

“But are you generally a classics kind of girl?” Lena asks, and she hates how desperate she sounds when she asks, but she really doesn’t want Kara to leave yet, and she has absolutely no idea why. 

“I just like to read, Lena. I already said that. I don’t really care whether it’s classics or mysteries or fucking fanfiction, okay? Excuse me,” Kara says, standing up and stepping towards Lena, forcing Lena to stand up too to let her by. 

“Can I walk you home?” 

Kara stops, just as she passes Lena, and meets her eyes. “Is there something wrong with you?” 

Lena laughs. “Do you really want me to answer that?” 

Kara narrows her eyebrows then, and the slight movement makes Lena realise just how close they’re standing, barely centimetres between them, and her laugh dies on her tongue. Her eyes dart to Kara’s lips of their own accord, and she’s surprised to find herself slightly breathless then. 

“Yeah, actually. I do,” Kara says, and when Lena meets her eyes again, there’s a challenge in them. “Tell me something that sucks about you.” 

Lena smiles smugly, accepting her challenge. “My mother hates me.” 

Kara rolls her eyes. “My mother is dead. Try harder.” 

“I’m adopted.” 

“Boo-fucking-hoo, so am I. Come _on_ , Lena. Give me something good,” Kara says, squaring her shoulders and making herself seem taller, their faces so close together now that Lena would only have to stretch her neck a little and she’d be able to kiss her. 

She isn’t sure what game Kara’s playing, why they’re having this conversation, why every single inch of her body feels on fire, but suddenly all she can think about is how close Kara’s lips are and how Kara’s blocking her exit from the table so there’s nowhere for her to go. Lena knows she’s staring at Kara’s mouth, but she’s completely unable to do anything about it at this point, her heart thudding hard and heavy inside her chest. 

“My brother tried to kill me,” Lena says, and she doesn’t recognise her voice when she speaks. 

She forces herself to meet Kara’s eyes, only she can’t, because Kara’s eyes are firmly on Lena’s mouth, and Lena just can’t stop herself from licking her lips slowly. 

Lena swears Kara’s pupils visibly dilate at that, but it’s dark and she could totally be imagining things. 

“Damn,” Kara says. “That’s fucked up.” 

Lena huffs out a laugh, but it doesn’t sound like any laugh she’s ever heard herself make before. “Can I walk you home?” She asks again, forcing herself to sound more confident than she feels. 

Just like that, the energy changes. Kara steps back and away from the table and Lena feels her pull away again, mentally and physically. “I can walk myself.” 

“I don’t doubt that, but I’d really like to walk you. Make sure you get home safe,” Lena pushes, slipping her purse over her arm. 

Kara zips up her leather jacket, and then looks at Lena. What feels like a lifetime passes between them before she shrugs. “Whatever. Do whatever you want.” 

“Thanks. I just need to text my friend. Give me two seconds,” Lena says, but Kara isn’t listening. She’s already walking away from Lena towards the exit, slipping the hood on her jacket up over her head. 

Lena unlocks her phone to quickly text Sam, but there’s already 3 unread messages from her. 

**Damn, Lena!!! I told you to ask her what she’s reading, not ask her if you can eye fuck her!!!**

**I can’t even look, you’re making me uncomfortable. But I’m proud of you. I knew you still had it in you**

**Okay I’m going home. This is too much, too gay even for me. See you tomorrow. Use protection!!! ;)**

Lena rolls her eyes, embarrassed to find her cheeks flushing as she reads Sam’s texts, and shoves her phone into her pocket before hurrying to catch up with Kara again. 

It’s cold out as they exit the bar and the sidewalk is already sparkling as the day’s rain begins to freeze over. Lena shivers. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this cold,” Kara says, and it surprises Lena because she hadn’t expected their walk home to consist of conversation, especially conversation initiated by Kara. Lena wonders briefly if Kara even realises that she’s spoken.

“What do you mean?” Lena asks, crossing her arms over her chest, trying to warm herself a little. She wishes she’d brought a jacket. 

“I mean, I hate the cold. Where I’m from, it was never this cold.” 

“Did you just move here? Where are you from?”

Kara glances over at Lena. “I’ve been here a year,” she shrugs, and Lena can’t understand why her words sound almost painful, but she doesn’t get to even question it before Kara is looking back down at the ground again and the conversation is effectively over. 

They walk in complete silence for around 5 minutes before Kara suddenly looks at her and says,

““I don’t usually talk to anyone like this. Or at all, actually.” 

Lena hates that that makes her smile, but she can’t help it.

“I don’t usually go out on Tuesday nights,” Lena says, and when Kara smiles, the smallest smile but a smile all the same, Lena wants to give herself a high five. 

Kara stops then, and Lena does too, and the energy between them is back and Lena’s heart skips a beat inside her chest.

“I have to go,” Kara says, her breath visible in the freezing night air. 

“Go where? I thought I was walking you home?” 

“I changed my mind. I have to go. I don’t want you to walk me home anymore.” 

“I won’t stay, I just want to make sure you’re home safe, that’s-“

“Lena, I don’t want you to. I’m fine. I want to walk myself,” Kara argues, raising her voice. She looks down, plays with the fabric on her jacket sleeve.

Lena doesn’t want to push her, and she can tell that Kara is clearly uncomfortable for some reason. 

“Well can I at least get your number?” Lena asks, taking out her phone and handing it to Kara so that she can put her number in. 

But Kara doesn’t take it. “You shouldn’t want this, Lena.”

Her eyes darken then, and suddenly, Lena feels almost afraid for the first time that night. She shivers, and she isn’t sure that it’s because of the cold. 

“But I- I do,” Lena stutters, and then she shivers again when she sees anger and grief and _pain_ in Kara’s eyes, all at the same time. “Kara…” Lena says, softly, and then she reaches for Kara’s hand instinctively.

Kara jumps at the touch, and quickly pulls her hand back, and then there’s nothing but rage in her eyes. 

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Kara yells, and Lena flinches, and suddenly she isn’t just afraid, she’s almost terrified. 

Kara is breathing heavily and her fists are clenched. 

“I’m sorry! I was just-“ 

“Stay away from me, Lena. For your own good, stay the fuck away from me. Because I really don’t want to hurt-“ 

But Kara doesn’t finish her sentence. 

Instead, she just runs off right in the middle of it, and she doesn’t look back, not even once. 

 

 

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is unbeta'd as all my fics always are but blame any and all mistakes on the fact that I was simultaneously voting for Supercorp whilst writing. (Every single time I typed a comma, I would vote. And I fucking love commas.) 
> 
> Please let me know what you think once you're done!

Lena doesn’t sleep well that night. 

She tosses and turns until the early hours of the morning, and when she finally does fall asleep, she dreams about her brother, and then suddenly Kara is there and there’s the same rage in her eyes, and when Lena wakes over an hour before her alarm, she’s in a cold sweat and far too unsettled to drift back to sleep again. 

Her dream leaves her with a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’s used to dreaming about Lex, used to dreaming about only Lex, so the appearance of Kara in what is otherwise a very recurring dream unnerves Lena, has her skin feeling cold, has her imagining things in the shadows of her room and has her reaching for the lamp on her bedside table after only a few minutes of lying in the dark. 

Now that her bedroom isn’t cloaked in darkness, she already feels a little better, and as she waits for her heart rate to return to normal, she reminds herself of the science behind dreams. That they’re just her brain’s way of processing, of retaining information, of releasing stress. She isn’t a lover of Freud, so she doesn’t believe that dreams necessarily _mean_ anything, much less that they’re actual signs of repressed emotions; she prefers the activation synthesis hypothesis, that dreams are merely electrical brain impulses that pull random thoughts and imagery from our memories with little or no meaning whatsoever. That waking up and sifting through and trying to _create_ meaning is inherently the problem.

Lena’s a woman of science. She trusts it. And so she gets up and out of bed, turns on the radio and takes a shower, determined not to think about Kara or her dream again. 

 

She makes it until 11:30am. Work keeps her busy, and there’s very little time for her to be distracted. But then there’s a small break in her schedule, (she never makes time for breaks herself but her assistant, bless her soul, always makes sure to rearrange her meetings to give her at least 5 minutes to herself, twice a day), and Lena finds herself standing at the window, looking out over the city that she knows and loves so much, thinking about Kara. 

She wonders where she lives, where she lived before, why she still isn’t used used to the cold a year later, why she seemed so angry, so bitter, so… _afraid_. 

She thinks about the way Kara had reacted when she’d touched her, the way she’d flinched, the swarm of emotions in her eyes presenting themselves as a wild cocktail of fury and rage.

She thinks about how warm Kara’s skin had been, how she’d felt her heat with just a simple touch, how even though she’d talked about the cold, Lena hadn’t seen her shiver even once. 

She thinks about Kara’s mother being dead, about her being adopted, about her being alone and scared and angry and completely detached from the world, and then Lena realises her entire body is covered in goosebumps, and she almost feels embarrassed to be thinking about Kara like this after just one night with her. 

She’s so distracted that she almost jumps out of her skin when her phone vibrates loudly on her desk, and she flushes bright red even though she knows no one is around to see her reaction. 

**I’m ready to gauge out my eyes**

Lena chuckles at Sam’s message. 

_The interview went well, I take it?_

**Oh, peachy. I hate men**

_I’m sorry. I know how much of a notoriously sexist and arrogant prick Mike is. Last time he interviewed me, he spoke to my chest the entire time. And then he asked me out on a date_

**He’s the one who asked you out on a date after you’d just spent the last 5 minutes talking about how you are a lesbian?!**

_That’s the one. The one who apparently thought he could “turn me straight”. And then when I politely told him that I’d rather die than go on a date with him, he tweeted about how much of a bitch I am to his pathetic 600 followers_

**He got dragged so hard for that tweet**

_I’m just lucky he tweeted it on the same day L Corp had donated 3 million dollars to help National City’s homeless youth, I guess_

**L Corp didn’t do that. That was just you Lena. And more people have your back than you think these days**

Lena blushes, slightly uncomfortable at Sam's praise. She knows she's right, but it's still hard for Lena to accept that maybe not everyone in the city hates her anymore the way they used to.

 _Whatever. I’m just sorry you had to suffer his presence_

**So am I. Come to yoga with me tonight and maybe I’ll forgive you for not having his obnoxious ass banned from the building?**

_Fine_

**Um… are you okay, boss?**

_?_

**I mean, I just asked if you’d come to yoga and you said you would. You never want to come to yoga. So I’m worried**

Reading back over her text, Lena realises that Sam’s right. She’s so distracted that she’s just casually agreed to workout after work, something she never does no matter how many times Sam asks. Because Lena hates the gym during the week; it’s too crowded and people stare. Part of her considers telling Sam about Kara, but she quickly changes her mind. Last night isn’t something she’s sure she can talk about yet, much less over text when she has a busy afternoon ahead of her. 

_I’ll talk to you later. I have to get back to work. See you tonight x_

**Lena????**

**Did something happen last night???**

**I’m seriously worried**

**You’re so strange and infuriating sometimes, you know that, right?**

**Love you x**

Lena puts her phone in her desk drawer and vows to keep it there for the rest of the afternoon so she can actually get some work done. But after two minutes, she takes it out, smiles and quickly types a simple reply. 

_Love you too :) x_

 

Lena manages to avoid Sam’s questioning about the night before exactly four times before Sam resorts to threatening and Lena’s surprised it takes her that long, if she’s honest. 

“I swear to god, Lena, if you don’t start talking I’m gonna come over there, sit on you and tickle you until you can’t breathe. Because you’ve done nothing but mope all evening and I’m sick of it,” Sam says, kicking Lena lightly on her calf from the other side of the couch where they’re sitting watching a movie after getting back from yoga. 

Lena laughs, dryly. “I am not moping.” 

“You are the literal definition of moping! We’re watching Resident Evil and you haven't even made one comment about how hot Michelle Rodriguez is. So I’m worried about you.”

“I just didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all,” Lena says, dismissively. 

Sam kicks her again. “Lena, I’m serious. Talk to me.” 

Lena knows Sam isn’t going to let this drop. And if she’s honest, she kind of needs someone to tell her she’s making a big deal out of nothing and needs to just stop thinking about Kara. She also knows that Sam won’t judge her, no matter what she tells her. 

“Okay, so you know the girl I was talking to last night? Well, I kind of can’t stop thinking about her,” Lena admits, not really knowing where to start but starting anyway. 

Sam raises her eyebrows suggestively. Lena hits her with a cushion. 

“You know, I _wish_ that was why I can’t stop thinking about her,” she says, rolling her eyes. 

She tells Sam everything, from Kara’s apparent disinterest, to the heated moment between them before they left the bar, to her outburst of anger after Lena had reached out and tried to comfort her. She tells her about Kara’s mother being dead, about her being adopted, about how she said she’d only been living in the city for a year. She tells her about how beautiful Kara was, how much she’d loved her glasses and the fact that she was sitting alone just reading a book in the middle of the bar, how she’d thought about kissing her more than once, how she’d offered to walk her home and couldn’t help but feel excited when Kara had accepted her offer. 

She talks and talks and Sam listens and doesn’t interrupt, and it’s one of Lena’s favourite things about her. She’s hilarious and dorky and always knows how to make Lena laugh, but she’s also soft and caring and the best listener in the entire world. Sam’s probably the one person in the world who knows everything about Lena, and still loves her anyway, and not a day goes by where Lena isn’t eternally grateful for their friendship. It’s because of Sam that Lena has learned how to be affectionate, how to trust people, how to not take herself and life so seriously all the time, and she doesn’t know what she’d do without her. 

Before Sam, Lena isn’t sure anyone had ever let her talk for as long as she needed to without being interrupted and she hadn’t realised just how badly she had needed a friend like that. 

“Well, fuck,” Sam says, when she’s sure Lena has finished speaking. 

Lena laughs, grateful that Sam has already managed to lighten the mood with just two words. “I know.” 

“Other than being extremely worried about your red flag system, is it kind of bad that I think she’s totally your type?” 

Lena resists the urge to hit her with the cushion again. 

“I don’t know if I should be offended by that.”

“I mean, obviously she’s weird and she’s going through some dark shit…” 

Lena huffs out a laugh. “Obviously.” 

“But if anyone gets that, gets what she’s going through, it’s probably you.” 

“But it doesn’t really matter does it? Because she didn’t give me her number anyway. So it’s not like I’m ever going to see her again,” Lena shrugs, trying to sound light and unaffected, but the truth in her words makes her feel heavy. “I know I’m just overthinking this and making something out of nothing and honestly, I feel like an idiot. But I can’t help it. Last night was so strange and even though Kara terrified me at times, all I want to do is see her again. And that’s just not like me, Sam. When have you ever seen me like this?” 

Sam thinks for a few seconds. “I haven’t ever seen you like this. Apart from the time you crushed so hard on the girl from the IT department and kept trying to think of excuses to go down there just so you could talk to her, even though she was straight.”

“Hey, Skye was _so not_ straight. And I didn’t make up excuses! I really did break my laptop! The hard-drive kept like, disconnecting...” Lena argues, her cheeks pinkening slightly. 

“Riiiight, because Lena Luthor with an IQ of 166 who literally helped to design all of the online security systems that most businesses in National City still use to this day, couldn’t fix her own laptop and needed help with her hard-drive.”

“Sam, this is so not relevant right now,” Lena laughs. 

“I know, but you’re so adorable sometimes and I can’t help it,” Sam teases, but then her face softens into a frown. “You really can’t stop thinking about Kara, can you? Is there something you aren’t telling me?” 

Lena looks down almost guiltily. “I kind of had a dream about her last night. The kind of dream I usually have about Lex. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking it,” she admits. 

Sam knows all too well about Lena’s nightmares, knows all too well about Lena’s brother and what happened between them. 

“Oh, honey. You really think Kara is like Lex?” 

“No! Fuck no, I don’t think that. Of course I don’t think that. I just don’t understand why my brain put them in a dream together, that’s all. And I know it’s stupid because I really don’t believe that dreams mean anything, but something just doesn’t add up about Kara and I hate not being able to connect the dots,” Lena says quickly, unsure as to why she feels like she has to defend Kara when she barely knows her. 

Sam gives her a pitiful look, and Lena half hates her for it. “Don’t look at me like that.” 

“I’m not looking at you like anything! I just know how you think and I’m worried you’re already way too invested in this,” Sam says. 

Lena disregards her with a shrug. “Whatever. Like I said, there’s nothing I can do about it anyway. So there’s no point getting invested is there? Can we talk about something else, please?” 

Sam nods, but she doesn’t look convinced. But another thing Lena loves about Sam is that she seems to always know and understand when Lena really doesn’t want to talk, and soon they’re back to light hearted banter whilst watching TV, and Lena’s glad that Sam doesn’t bring it up again. When she leaves an hour or so later, Sam tells Lena to get some sleep, to try not to worry too much, and Lena promises her that she will. 

And she does. She listens to a podcast and she works on a few blueprints for a new piece of tech and then she makes herself a camomile tea and is asleep before 11. 

But then suddenly it’s 2am and once again, she’s waking in a cold sweat from a nightmare, and every time Lena tries to go back to sleep, all she can see are Kara’s blue eyes, wild with rage. 

She gives up trying to sleep after that. 

She lies awake for a long time, resisting the urge to pull up on online dream dictionary, reminding herself over and over that dreams don’t mean anything. 

There’s a point though, just before sunrise, where Lena lets herself consider for a second that maybe her brain is trying to tell her something. That it’s trying to get her to think outside the box a little bit. That maybe, deep down, she’s thinking way too much about Kara, but that there’s a genuine reason as to why. 

She feels a little more peaceful after that, and she isn’t sure why. Maybe it comes from simply accepting that Kara is something her brain wants to think about, and that she probably shouldn’t fight it so hard. 

But the peace doesn’t last, because she keeps coming back to the feeling that she’s missing something, that something isn’t _right_. 

She hates the twisting feeling in her stomach, the twisting feeling she gets when something just doesn’t add up. 

A lot of things don’t add up about Kara. 

And Lena worries that she’s never going to get the chance to figure them out. 

 

When Lena’s alarm goes off an hour later, her lock screen is full of unread messages from Sam, sent around 40 minutes ago. It isn’t like Sam to be awake so early, and as she reads her texts, Lena’s heart thuds hard in her chest. 

**Are you up yet???**

**You’re probably not but I need to tell you this anyway**

**I was just talking to Alex about everything you told me last night and she started acting really weird and then when I was telling her about Kara saying her mom is dead and she’s adopted, Alex freaked out**

**Kara is Alex’s sister Lena**

**Call me as soon as you wake up please. There’s something you need to know**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos if you caught the little Agents of Shield reference. I'm totally obsessed with the show right now and I can't stop thinking about how Lena would tooootally have a crush on Skye. Lena & Kara and Skye & Felicity (Smoak) could literally dominate the world together and I'm not ever going to stop thinking about the 4 of them being power girlfriends. Ever. I'm so sad they don't exist in the same universe. Imagine how cute their double dates would be :(


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm forcing myself to pace this because SLOW BURN but honestly i'm the worst and idk how long my self control will last

Lena calls Sam as soon as she reads her messages, but no one answers and a couple of minutes later, she receives a text from her saying that she’s still with Alex and can’t talk, so she’ll try and find time to see her at work. 

Lena’s frustrated, both because she doubts Sam will have time to talk to her until at least late afternoon, and also because her text is so vague, and it’s making her feel nervous and she’ll probably spend the whole day imagining the worst. 

Kara being Alex’s sister though… that almost makes her laugh. 

Of all the women in National City, Lena just has to have a crush on her best friend’s girlfriend’s sister. 

Her stomach flutters at the thought of Alex being the connection, at being the reason she might potentially see Kara again, and before she even realises, she’s grinning at her reflection in the bathroom mirror like a lovesick puppy. 

After that, she forces herself into the shower because she knows she has a busy day ahead of her and CEO Lena Luthor doesn’t have time for crushes. The only crushing she has time for is of the patriarchy. Or something like that. 

Her day continues like many others have before. Until suddenly, around 2:30 in the afternoon, her assistant calls through to Lena’s office. 

“Ms Luthor? I’m really sorry but there’s a woman outside and she’s demanding to see you and I’ve tried to tell her that you’re busy but she isn’t taking no for an answer. I assume I’m just to call security but she says you’re probably expecting her?” 

Lena quickly checks her schedule, sees that she has no meetings with anyone for the rest of the day, and creases her brow. 

“What’s her name?” She asks, confused. 

“Alex Danvers. _Agent_ Alex Danvers,” Jess says, emphasising the word agent enough that it sounds like a warning. 

Even though Sam has been dating Alex for two months, Lena is yet to meet her, due to the fact that according to Sam, Alex works almost as much as Lena does (which is too much, she always tells her she works too much) and as much as Sam enjoys candidly talking about their sex life with her, Lena doesn’t actually know all that much else about Alex. But given Sam’s taste in women, it hardly surprises Lena that Alex is an agent of some sort. Probably FBI, she guesses. 

Her chest flutters nervously at the prospect of meeting Alex, especially under the current circumstances and before she’s had chance to speak to Sam about her text from this morning, but Lena’s spent most of her day dealing with insufferable and whining males, and so meeting with Alex is practically a day at the beach compared to that. 

“Send her in, Jess. And please, don’t bother security. I’ll handle this,” Lena says, and then she stands and smoothes the creases from her skirt that have gathered there after being seated at her desk for the last hour. 

She’s still nervous, and ideally this isn’t at all how she’d wanted to meet Alex, but as she stands and catches her reflection in the mirror on the far wall, her anxiety lessens a little, because she looks strong and confident and powerful, and maybe her brain will forget that she doesn’t necessarily _feel_ those things too. 

She barely has time to flick her long hair over her shoulders and straighten her posture before the door to her office swings open and Agent Alex Danvers strides in. 

In all the pictures Sam has shown Lena of Alex, she looks soft and kind of dorky, laughing at the camera or pulling faces at Sam or grinning as she kisses her cheek. 

_This_ Alex is… well. This Alex is almost as terrifying as Kara had been. 

She matches Lena in height, and even though her frame is smaller, Lena knows without a doubt that this woman can more than handle herself in a fight. She’s dressed in her uniform, FBI badge proudly on her breast pocket, pistol holstered at her hip. 

But more terrifying than that is the frown on her face and the anger in her eyes. 

Lena considers the likeness between Alex and Kara, and even though she knows that Kara is adopted, the rage in Alex’s eyes couldn’t be more perfectly matched. 

“You need to stay away from my sister,” Alex says, calmly and coldly, skipping any and all pleasantries completely. 

Lena had been half expecting Alex to yell, and so the calmness of her tone throws her a little. “I don’t know what you think I-“ 

“Look, Lena, I don’t know you and I’m not going to pretend that I personally care about what happens to you, but I care about Sam, and so for her sake, you need to quit whatever you think you have with Kara and stay away from her,” Alex interrupts, stopping just a couple of feet away from Lena, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. 

There’s a clear warning in Alex’s words, a warning Lena doesn’t fully understand, and it definitely unsettles her but she isn’t about to let Alex know that. 

“I appreciate your concern, but I make my own choices. And I’m sure Kara does too,” Lena replies. 

“You don’t know anything about Kara!” Alex yells, her calm demeanour suddenly forgotten. “You don’t know the _slightest_ thing about Kara, or about what- _who_ she is!” 

Alex falters briefly on the word _what_ , and it makes Lena shiver. 

“I know but-“

“No, Lena. You don’t get it. Kara’s- She’s-“ Alex struggles a little to find words, and then she looks a little choked up, and Lena can tell that it bothers her, that she hadn’t planned on showing her emotions like this. “There’s just so much that she’s been through. You just- You have no _idea_. And there’s nothing you can do for her, so it’s better for everyone if you just stay away.” 

Lena softens then, only slightly, because suddenly all she can see in front of her is Lex, 10 years ago, when Lena had told him she had a crush on a girl in her algebra class and wanted to ask her to the prom. Being her older brother, of course he’d gone into overprotective mode and tried to find out everything there was to know about the girl, and Lena had only just managed to talk him out of cornering and threatening her in the parking lot when he picked Lena up from school one day. He’d apologised, because believe it or not, Lex used to be reasonable and so caring, and had explained that he only ever wanted what was best for Lena, that he didn’t want her to get hurt, that he felt responsible for her sometimes because their parents weren’t always around and he hated the idea of her growing up and getting into relationships because then she might need _him_ less. 

Lena’s heart clenches painfully at the memory, but she’s grateful because the memory helps her relate to Alex. Because of course Alex is just looking out for her sister. She looks older than Kara, just like how Lex is older than Lena, and if Lena’s experience with Lex is anything to go by, then Alex is probably just fiercely overprotective. 

“Look, Alex-“

“Agent Danvers, thank you,” Alex interrupts, stubbornly. 

Lena smiles, because she can see herself really growing to like Alex one day. “Agent Danvers, then. I only met Kara once, and although she made an impression on me and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since, I had no idea that there was anything or anyone connecting us, had no idea that she was your sister, and Kara made it pretty clear that she doesn’t want to see me again, so trust me when I say that your visit today is unnecessary.” 

It’s half the truth, half a big fat lie. Because while Kara _had_ made it pretty clear that she didn’t want to see Lena again, Lena had definitely not been about to leave it at that. 

Alex shakes her head slowly. “You don’t get it, Lena. It’s not that Kara doesn’t _want_ to see you again, because I’m sure that she does. It’s that she _can’t_. For your safety and for hers. Kara just can’t be around other people. It’s complicated but it’s- it’s just how it has to be.” 

Lena tilts her head in confusion and waits for Alex to explain, but she doesn’t. 

“I don’t understand…” Lena presses, goosebumps appearing on her arms. She isn’t even sure what she’s asking, whether she even wants to know. 

“I’ve already said too much,” Alex sighs. “Please, Lena. Just trust me on this, okay? I’m sure you mean well, but it’s for the best.”

Lena looks at Alex then, really looks at her, and there’s so much in her eyes. She can see the weight of a thousand secrets in them, can see everything she’s not saying even though none of it makes any sense at all. 

“Alex, she’s-“ Lena stops, because she doesn’t fully know what she’s about to say, and she doesn’t want to say anything that might make Alex angry again when this feels like the closest to the truth she’s been so far. “Kara’s so lonely. I could see it in her eyes the other night. And I just want to be her friend. Don’t you think Kara deserves a friend?”

Alex opens her mouth to argue, but then she hesitates and her stiff composure falls a little. Her eyes soften only slightly and then she sighs. “What Kara deserves isn’t up to you,” she says, quietly. “You have to stay away from her. This is me asking nicely, Lena. Next time, I won’t be so pleasant.” 

With that, Alex turns and leaves before Lena has the chance to argue anymore. 

It takes Lena almost 5 entire minutes to realise that there are still goosebumps on her arms, and when she does, she simply turns up the heat in her office and goes back to work. 

 

 **I’m literally not even gonna get 2 minutes to myself this afternoon :(**

_I could have told you that this morning if you’d answered the phone_

**Look. When I said I was still with Alex and couldn’t talk I meant I was still IN Alex and couldn’t talk**

_Wonderful. Thanks for that visual. I’m glad I didn’t get your text before I had the pleasure of meeting Alex this afternoon_

**WHAT????**

_Oh, did I forget to mention that your lovely girlfriend came to see me?_

**Fuck**

**Was she mean????**

**She was mean wasn’t she???**

_Well, she didn’t threaten me with hugs and candy, if that’s what you’re asking_

**Oh for fuck’s sake my 4:30 is here I have to go**

**But we need to talk about this and also about other things, namely things I was extremely vague about this morning**

**Which I’m sorry for, by the way**

**Are you busy tonight???**

_You’re damn right we need to talk_

_It’s either that or I’m genuinely considering never speaking to you again, actually_

_But I’m not sure if I’ll be free. I’ll let you know_

_Enjoy your meeting. Wait no don’t. I hope it sucks :)_

**I deserve that**

Lena doesn’t expect another reply from Sam, but she stares at her phone waiting for one anyway, just for something to do. 

She’s given up trying to work because every time she does, her mind wanders back to Kara, and she’s sick of the constant typos and miscalculations she seems to make whenever she thinks about Kara, so she shuts down her computer and rests her head on the back of her chair, closing her eyes and massaging her fingers into her scalp for a while to try and relieve some of the tension that’s been ebbing away there ever since Alex left. 

It’s pointless, she knows it’s pointless, but she tries anyway. 

The truth is that Alex’s visit has shaken her more than she cares to admit, and she’s been over their conversation probably a hundred times inside her head and still can’t make sense of it. 

And that twisting feeling inside her stomach that there’s just something _not right_ has been even more persistent than usual this afternoon. 

Lena gets the protective sister thing, or at least she thinks she does. Because she has Lex’s overbearing and sometimes completely smothering attitude to base her presumption on. She has old memories with her brother that she can relate to, and so she gets Alex wanting to protect Kara, she really does.

And yeah, maybe it’s strange that Alex is already playing the older sister card when Lena has only met Kara once, and with no inclination of a second meeting, but even that is understandable given that Kara’s adopted and clearly hasn’t had it easy and maybe Alex feels responsible for her in ways that exceed a standard sibling relationship. Which Lena also _gets_. 

It’s everything else that she doesn’t understand. 

It’s Alex talking about her safety, talking about Kara not having friends, not being around other people at all. It’s Alex warning Lena to stay away from Kara, threatening her.

It’s Alex faltering on the word _what_. 

_“You don’t know the slightest thing about Kara, or about what she is!”_

What. 

Not who. 

_What._

That’s the word flying around and around in her brain, pressing into the backs of her eyes. 

Lena might have believed it a slip of the tongue if the conversation had been about anything else, _anyone_ else. But then she remembers the moment of panic in Alex’s eyes as she’d faltered, her quick mouth remembering its place and continuing the sentence expeditiously, as though saying the rest of it 5 times as fast would make Lena forget her mistake. 

Add to that the weight in her gaze, the admission that she’d already said too much, the implication that there was so much _more_ she wasn’t allowed to say. 

Lena shivers, and when she sits up, she’s almost surprised to find that darkness has crept up on her without her knowing, and apart from her desk lamp, her office is cloaked in shadows. 

She hates how quickly the sun sets at this time of year. 

She’s about to stand and turn on the main light, but then she swears she catches movement right in the corner of her peripheral vision, by her window, and she freezes. 

There’s nothing there now, of course, she can see that reflected in the mirror across the room. All she can see is her wide eyed expression, the lack of colour in her cheeks. 

It’s so quiet all of a sudden, _too quiet_ , she swears it’s never this quiet. 

Lena tries to tell herself that she’s being paranoid, because she’s on the 39th floor and the only thing outside her window is around a 350 foot drop. 

But the hairs on her neck stand on end and her fight or flight reactors kick in anyway, and suddenly she’s frozen in her seat. 

Because she could have _sworn_ there was someone at her window just then. Which makes no sense whatsoever. 

Unless suddenly humans can fly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's worth noting that this story exists in a weird place where a lot of the canon/comic luthor vs super stuff didn't happen okay and that's not like 100% relevant or important right now but it will be as the story progresses so i just thought i'd mention it now 
> 
> but anyway please let me know your thoughts!! comments are what keep my muse alive honestly and i always love reading and replying to them!! <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy first day of april! happy first day of camp nanowrimo! (happy "oh shit i meet melissa and chlyer NEXT MONTH" if you're me)
> 
> my camp nanowrimo word goal is at least 30k and they're all going to be dedicated to this story so buckle up!!

Lena doesn’t move for a long time. 

She’d probably feel stupid if she wasn’t already feeling too paranoid to feel anything else. She knows she’s being ridiculous, knows there can’t possibly have been anyone at her window, but her heart still races all the same. 

A bubble of anxiety rises up into her chest and the feeling is so familiar; it reminds her of waking up from her nightmares, it reminds her of her brother, and she forces herself to close her eyes and count to 50. 

The anxiety scares her, because it isn’t all that long ago that she lived in a perpetual state of it, and it’s taken a lot of hard work to get to a place where that isn’t the case anymore. 

“You’re okay,” she whispers aloud to herself, taking a deep breath. “You’re okay.” 

She keeps her eyes closed a little longer, stands up from her desk with them still closed because making the first move feels easier somehow if she can’t see the darkness of her office. 

Taking another deep breath, when Lena finally opens her eyes, she feels a little better, less on edge, and even though she still cannot shake the feeling of being watched, she’s able to cross the room and turn on the light. She turns on the radio too, because she’s never been fond of silence at the best of times, let alone times like this where paranoia and anxiety threaten to eat her alive. 

Once the lights are on and there’s smooth music filling the room, Lena crosses the room and stands at the window. 

There’s no one there, obviously, and below her the city is alive with the hustle and bustle of rush hour; people leaving work, heading home to husbands and wives and children and dogs, heading home to make dinners or order take-outs or take kids to ballet classes. The offices opposite are starting to go dark, lights turning out one by one, and Lena lets herself indulge in it all, lets the lively atmosphere of the end of the day in the city fill her until the anxiety disappears. 

After that, she goes back to her desk and gets back to work. 

Around 7pm, Jess knocks lightly on her door and asks if she’d like her to call her driver to take her home, but Lena declines, tells Jess she feels like walking home today, and then dismisses her for the day. 

Half an hour or so later, Lena finally shuts down her computer, slips on her coat and heads out, stopping briefly to make friendly small talk with the janitors and security guards as she exits the building, the same way she does everyday. 

She stops by her favourite natural kitchen on the way home to pick up some dinner, walks a little quicker once she’s carrying the bag of food, excited to get home and relax on the couch whilst she eats. 

She’s almost home, roughly two blocks away, when she sees Kara. 

She’s standing just across the street, and even though it’s dark, Lena recognises her straight away because she’s wearing the same jacket she was wearing a couple of nights ago, the same thousand yard stare and the same soft scowl on her face. 

The sight of her unnerves Lena, because it’s so quiet in this part of the city and it’s dark and cold and Kara is just… staring at her her. 

Lena keeps walking, approaching her slowly, and she half expects Kara to turn and run every time she takes a step closer, but she doesn’t. The only thing that changes about her is her expression, which grows more and more cold the closer Lena gets. 

She doesn’t understand it, but then Lena doesn’t understand _anything_ about Kara. 

Lena notices a book in Kara’s hand once she’s a little closer, notices that she’s no longer reading Romeo and Juliet, and is instead holding a copy of Alice In Wonderland, and it almost makes Lena smile because it’s one of her favourite novels. Lex used to read it to her every night when she first came to live with the Luthors, when she was still scared of the unfamiliar shadows in her new bedroom, still getting used to sleeping alone after spending the last year sharing a room with six other girls at the orphanage. She wasn’t used to the quiet, and somehow Lex had picked up on that, picked up on the way she’d quietly ask Lillian to sit with her until she fell asleep, heard her muffled cries as she was rejected every time, enough times that she quickly stopped asking at all. 

Lex would sneak into her room once Lillian had left, and without another word, take the book from her shelf and read to her quietly until her eyes closed. 

She remembers the first time he’d come to her, the soft way he’d asked, “What do you need, Lena?”, the way she’d shrugged, quickly wiped her eyes and turned her back on him, not wanting to be seen crying because the girls in her dorm had always made fun of her for crying. 

She hadn’t trusted anyone back then, least of all her new family, especially her new mother who didn’t seem to like her much at all, but as Lex had begun to read, somehow seeming to know that all she had needed was to not be alone, she’d started to wonder if maybe he could be her friend one day. The first time he’d read to her, he’d picked a book that was far too simple, a book she’d read years ago when she was barely two years old, already far more advanced when it came to basic comprehension than any other children her age. 

_“I already read that,” Lena whispered, clutching the bed covers tightly, her voice shaking. “Would you read me something else, please?”_

_Lex chuckled, softly. “What book would you like me to read?”_

_Lena turned to face him, and then shrugged. “I’ve read all the books Lillian put in here for me. I’m good at reading.”_

_“You are, aren’t you? You’re good at lots of things,” Lex smiled, and when Lena shrugged again, unsure of how to react to such a compliment because compliments weren’t something she’d received much of so far in her 5 years of life, Lex stood up and crossed the room, opening the door to her closet which was much too large for a girl of her age, much too large for anyone really, everything about her new home was too large and too empty, and lifted a box from the top shelf._

_Lena sat up in bed, suddenly curious, because Lena was always curious, and couldn’t help the delight that spread onto her face as Lex placed the box on her bed, opening it up to reveal stacks of books, all hard backed and worn._

_Lena raised an eyebrow in question as she looked up at Lex, asking silently if she could touch them, because alongside compliments, gifts also weren’t something she had ever really received, much less gifts as precious as this. In fact, she wasn’t even sure if the books were for her at all._

_“Go ahead, they’re all yours. Well, they’re mine actually, but mom says I’m too old for them now. She wanted to throw them out, but I put them in here for you instead. She doesn’t know, so this is our secret, okay?” Lex smiled, as Lena leaned over and peered into the box, tracing her fingers over the covers and spines._

_“Our secret,” Lena whispered back, beaming internally as she carefully picked out one of the books. None of the girls in the orphanage had ever wanted to share secrets with her. She hadn’t understood why, because she was great at keeping secrets, she’d had hundreds of secrets with her dad, hundreds of secrets she’d never told a single soul, not even her mother. Thinking about her parents made her want to cry then, because she missed them so much, and she hated it here, hated her new family and her new room and the books on her shelf that were too young for her._

_“Lena?” Lex asked, and Lena realised in horror that she was crying. “What’s wrong?” Lex tried to hold her hand, but Lena flinched out of his reach._

_He pulled back, looking at her with sad, wide eyes, and Lena looked away, looked down at the book she was holding; Alice In Wonderland. She turned the book over in her hands and quickly read the synopsis, desperate to distract herself from thoughts of her parents._

_“Will you read this one to me, please?” She asked, handing the book over to Lex. “I like the sound of this one.”_

_Lex smiled again, and Lena found herself smiling back, and when she wiped her tears again, it wasn’t out of shame this time._

_“Lie down, then,” Lex said, ushering Lena back under the covers. “You’re going to love this story.”_

Lex had been right, she had loved the story. And the memories she has of the two of them reading until late into the night are some of Lena’s favourite memories. 

Lena crosses the street then, now only metres away from Kara. Kara who is still staring intensely at her, still frowning angrily. 

“Hello, Kara,” Lena says, once she’s close enough to speak without having to raise her voice, stopping opposite her. 

Kara leans against the wall behind her, and a slight flick of her eyebrow is the only indication that she even hears Lena speak. 

Lena doesn’t know what else to say, doesn't know whether Kara had even expected her to say anything at all, whether Kara is just used to being ignored. 

Lena struggles to comprehend how a face that beautiful could ever be used to being ignored. 

“Do you always stare at people in the street?” Lena asks, forcing a laugh. 

Kara doesn’t laugh, but that doesn’t surprise Lena. What _does_ surprise Lena, is Kara’s response. 

“Do you always walk home alone in the dark?” Kara asks sharply, crossing her arms tightly over her chest, slipping the book under her arm. 

Lena watches Kara’s face, searching for any kind of emotion beyond the anger in her frown, but she comes up empty. 

Her voice is cold, but if Lena thinks about it enough, it almost sounds like Kara… cares. 

“What is it to you if I do?” Lena asks, laughing humourlessly. 

Kara doesn’t respond, but Lena notices her fingertips dig hard into her bicep. 

“I don’t care, really,” Kara says after a second, her words sounding just as forced as Lena’s laugh. “But don’t you have friends who do? Who _would_ care if something if something happened to you? If you were my friend, I’d tell you that you’re pretty fucking stupid for walking home alone in the dark like this.” 

Kara’s words sting Lena a little, which she guesses is probably Kara’s intention given the hostility in her voice, but she shrugs it off, determined not to let Kara get to her. “Well, what about you? You’re out here alone in the dark too. So doesn’t that make you equally as stupid?” Lena asks, coldly.

Kara rolls her eyes. “The difference is, I can take care of myself.” 

“And what makes you think I can’t?” 

Kara meets her eyes then, her gaze is so heavy it’s almost as as though she’s reading right through Lena, and Lena fights back a shiver. 

“Are you hiding a weapon inside that pretty dress of yours?” Kara asks, and the way she asks almost sounds like she’s making fun of Lena, like the question in itself is some kind of inside joke that Lena doesn’t understand. 

“What if I am?” 

Kara huffs out a laugh. “Bullets can’t protect you from _everyone_ , Lena.” 

Her emphasis on the word everyone sends a chill down Lena’s spine. 

Lena wonders if by everyone, Kara simply means _her_.

“And besides you just look…” Kara continues, trails off, casts her eyes down over Lena’s body slowly. “You look like you’re all just talk, I guess.” 

Lena laughs, suddenly hot under Kara’s gaze. “Oh, really?” 

When Kara’s eyes travel back up Lena’s body to meet hers again, there’s a hint of… _something_ in them. Past the anger and the intimidation, it reminds Lena of the night they met, of the electricity she’d felt between them before Kara had pulled away. Lena almost wants to look away, because she’s suddenly all too aware that it’s late and there’s no one else around. 

“Are you afraid?” Kara whispers, taking a slow step forward, her eyes still boring into Lena’s. 

Lena fights the urge to look away, fights the yes that forms on her tongue, forces herself to shake her head. 

Kara laughs then, hard and cold, and then she leans back against the wall again. “Liar.” 

Lena feels the coldness of Kara’s laugh in every inch of her body, and she pulls her coat tighter around herself before she can shiver. “Your sister came to see me today,” Lena says, and she doesn’t really recognise her voice when she speaks. 

Kara clearly hadn’t been expecting that, and suddenly her demeanour changes then, from hard and cold and affected, to completely emotionless and bored. 

“My sister hates me,” Kara replies flippantly, unfolding her arms to pick at her fingernails. “I ruined her life.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. It seemed to me like she just wants to protect you,” Lena argues, not fully understanding why she feels as though she has to defend Alex, especially when she really has no idea what kind of relationship Kara has with her sister. 

Kara snickers a cold laugh. “You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about, Lena.” 

Lena ignores the insult. “Maybe not. I just thought you should know.” 

“I don’t care. Alex can do whatever she likes. But I don’t need protecting,” Kara says, fiercely. 

“She warned me, told me to stay away from you,” Lena continues, hesitantly, her eyes never once leaving Kara’s.

Kara stops laughing at that, and when Lena looks down, she sees her clench her fists. A puff of ice cold air washes over Lena’s face, too cold to just be the natural October evening air, too cold for Lena to understand anything at all. 

When Lena looks back at Kara’s face, she find her with her eyes closed, her lips parted slightly, and she’s breathing heavily, every inch of her visibly tense. 

Everything about her like this terrifies Lena. 

She knows she’s never seen anyone this angry. 

“Maybe you should listen to her,” Kara snaps, the words forced through her teeth, loud enough that they make Lena jump. 

“Y- _You_ found _me_ tonight,” Lena argues, stutters, her voice shaking. 

Kara’s eyes snap open, and the fury Lena sees in them only terrifies her further. “I didn’t _find_ you, Lena. You were the one being stupid, walking home by yourself in the dark where anyone could-“ 

“How did you even know I was walking home alone unless you were looking for me?” Lena interrupts, surprising herself. 

Kara stops, closes her eyes again, her fists still tightly clenched, her breaths light and quick and… _cold_.

“Get away from me, Lena,” Kara says, and something in the way she speaks makes Lena more terrified than she’s been so far. 

Terrified enough to actually do as Kara says. 

Lena takes a couple of steps back, but before she turns and leaves completely, Lena does what is arguably the most stupid thing she’s ever done in her life. 

“If you need a friend, I live a couple of blocks away. Fifth street, apartment 302. Just-“ 

“Lena, just fucking go! Please!” Kara yells, begs, and Lena realises then that she isn’t the only one who is afraid; Kara is too. 

So she goes. She turns and walks quickly away, and she doesn’t look back until she’s several metres away, plenty of safe distance between them, even when she hears a loud crashing sound, not dissimilar to bricks hitting the pavement. 

Kara’s gone when she looks back. 

But there’s a fist sized hole in the wall that Lena is absolutely sure wasn’t there before, broken pieces of brick scattered on the ground underneath it. 

Lena tries her hardest not to think about the fact that she’s potentially just given her address to someone who is somehow strong enough to punch holes through brick walls. 

But the sight of it has her practically running the rest of the way home, terrified tears burning the backs of her eyes, and all the while, she can’t seem to shake the feeling that she’s being watched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the small changes in lena's canon past that i made here; they just help me tell this story a little easier and a little differently and i hope you don't mind them too much!!


	5. Chapter 5

Over the next couple of weeks, Lena sees Kara exactly three times. 

The first time she sees her, she pretends she doesn’t. 

She’s at the grocery store and it’s 1am. It’s been a long day and she’s made several million dollar decisions and she just wants a little normalcy.

Lena isn’t ashamed to admit that she enjoys food shopping at 1 in the morning, but she also doesn’t exactly broadcast the fact. She enjoys the quietness, the emptiness, the almost cathartic feelings that swirl up inside her as she pushes her cart leisurely up and down the aisles. 

She hardly ever sees anyone in the store, besides the sparse number of employees working the night shift. She always smiles and makes pleasantries with them, because she knows it must suck to work a minimum wage job at the best of times, let alone during the early hours when most people are sleeping. If it was appropriate to tip them, she would, but that almost feels like pity, so she doesn’t. Besides, what would Lena Luthor know about the working class? They probably wouldn’t want her money. It would probably feel like charity, coming from her. 

She rolls her eyes at herself. These are the places her mind goes halfway down the nuts and legumes aisle at a little after one in the morning. 

She’s just grabbing two boxes of her favourite lentil pasta, when she spots Kara out of the corner of her eye. 

She’s on the other side of the aisle, a little further up, and she’s just standing there, watching Lena. 

Lena doesn’t look up, doesn’t even acknowledge that she knows Kara is there, continues perusing the shelf with as much nonchalance as she can feign, and she’s just grateful that Kara can’t hear her heartbeat racketing in her chest. She wants to turn around, wants to confront her, wants to ask her what she’s doing in the grocery store at this time, why she seems to be following her, what the hell her problem is… but she doesn’t. Lena’s acutely aware of every single inch of her body, feels hot and prickly all over, and she has no doubt now that Kara knows that she knows she’s there if her movements look as jerky as they feel, but Kara makes no effort to move or even hide the fact that she’s staring at Lena, and whilst it makes Lena shiver a little, she isn’t afraid. 

She takes out her phone as she moves up the aisle, pretends to be checking her grocery list as she passes Kara and then quickly turns onto the next one. 

She throws a seemingly haphazard glance back before she turns, as if to double check she hasn’t forgotten anything, and almost trips over her own feet in the process when she finds Kara still watching her, only now with the softest of smiles on her face. 

 

The second time Lena sees Kara is two weeks after that. 

It’s a Sunday afternoon and it’s unseasonably warm for October, one of those bittersweet days where you feel a little guilty for enjoying the weather because deep down your brain keeps reminding you about global warming. 

Lena is at the park with Sam and Ruby, who is finally back from her school trip much to Sam’s delight, and the three of them are enjoying ice-creams whilst Ruby tells Lena and Sam all about Europe. 

You’d never know that the twelve year old is suffering from 10 hours worth of jet lag with the way she animatedly talks about the places she went and the people she met, barely pausing her stories to lick at her ice-cream before continuing. 

When Sam nudges Lena and quietly whispers, “isn’t that Kara?” over Ruby’s chatter, Lena half expects Kara to be dazzling in the sunlight, because she’s convinced herself she’s some sort of vampire at this point. (She isn’t a hermit, she’s seen Twilight and she can’t help thinking that a few of the similarities between Kara and Edward Cullen are uncanny). She isn’t dazzling, at least not literally, although she definitely _looks_ absolutely dazzling. 

Lena realises that this is the first time she’s seen her in daylight — all of their encounters have been at night so far — and even though Kara is standing a few feet away, and all Lena can see is her side profile as she stands with her hands in her pockets looking out over the bay, Lena’s heart still skips at how beautiful she is. Her blonde hair looks golden in the sunlight, and Lena thinks it’s probably illegal for someone to look so good in a simple jeans and a sweater combo. 

Rationally her brain keeps telling her to forget about Kara, rationally she knows that she probably _should_ be afraid of her, rationally she knows that something is _not right_ about her… but as she watches her, she finds herself blushing. Because occasionally terrifying or not, Kara is gorgeous. 

“Are you blushing?” Sam asks, and when Lena blushes even harder as she shakes her head, she laughs. 

“Who is she blushing at?” Ruby asks, her story suddenly forgotten, a mischievous grin on her face that she absolutely gets from her mother. 

“No one. Your mom is just being mean,” Lena says, flicking Sam’s temple. 

“C’mere Ruby,” Sam says, turning Ruby around so that she can follow her gaze. “See the blonde? Lena has a crush.” She points out Kara to Ruby, who only grins harder in response. 

“She’s pretty! You should talk to her,” Ruby smiles, as though what she’s suggesting is the easiest thing in the world. 

Lena laughs, half-heartedly. “It’s not that simple, honey.” 

“Of course it is! You go over and say hey. What’s hard about that?” Ruby argues. 

Lena looks to Sam for support, but Sam just shrugs and looks innocently over at Ruby, the look on her face saying loud and clear, _I’m with her on this_.

Lena hasn’t talked to Sam much more about Kara, and she definitely hasn’t mentioned their encounter the other night after work. Sam knows something is up, she’s said so herself, because even Lena who hates dating wouldn’t pine over someone like this for so long without doing anything. 

Not that Lena is pining. At all. She’s just keeping her distance for absolutely valid reasons. 

Sam also thinks it’s weird that she hasn’t formally met Kara yet, given that she’s dating Alex and Kara is her sister. All Alex has told Sam is that she and Kara don’t really get along, that Kara moved out a couple of months ago and hasn’t really been over to see her since. Every time Sam tries to talk to Alex about it, she changes the subject, and Sam doesn’t push it because she doesn’t want to upset her, but it’s driving Sam almost as crazy as it’s driving Lena to not know what their deal is. 

Lena watches Kara a little longer, wishes she were braver, brave enough to walk over and just start talking to Kara about the weather. 

Talking to Kara about _anything_. 

“You’re considering it, aren’t you?” Sam asks, smiling knowingly. 

Lena shrugs. “Honestly, I don’t know if there’s any point. What if-“ 

“ _What if_ she really likes you?” Ruby interrupts. 

“She doesn’t.” 

“But how do you know?” 

“I just know, okay?! Can we drop it now, please?” Lena says, a little louder than intended. She shoots Ruby an apologetic glance before standing up from the bench they’re seated at. “I’m gonna go, actually. I have work to do.” 

It’s not completely a lie, Lena always has work she could be doing, but at the same time she’s absolutely just looking for an easy way out of the conversation. 

“I’m sorry, Lena,” Ruby says, grabbing Lena’s hand. “Don’t go, please. I missed you while I was away.” 

Lena relents a little, tucking some of Ruby’s hair behind her ear affectionately. “I missed you too, sweetheart. And you don’t have anything to apologise for. I’m just being an idiot.” 

“A useless lesbian,” Ruby giggles, and then Lena flicks _her_ forehead. 

“You spend too much time with your mom,” Lena laughs. 

Sam pulls Ruby in for a hug, kissing the top of her head with a smile. “Not enough time, actually. Never enough time. I am so deprived of my daughter all of the time,” she laughs, and then sighs dramatically, pulling Ruby tighter into her the harder she fights to pull away. 

“You two are gross,” Lena says, but the sight of the two of them like this is Lena’s favourite thing in the world. 

She’s been known to get a little teary eyed around Sam and Ruby, and she’s sure they notice, but neither of them ever say anything which she appreciates. 

Seeing Sam with Ruby makes Lena ache inside sometimes, no matter how often she’s around them, and it makes her wonder how different her life would have been if her parents were still alive, or if Lillian had loved her even a fraction of the amount that Sam loves Ruby. The two of them just fit together so perfectly, like there’s never been anything but them, like there’s absolutely nothing missing, and it’s beautiful to see. It both warms her heart and makes her terrifyingly aware of the emptiness that always resides inside her at the same time. 

“It’s not me, it’s _her_!” Ruby laughs, squealing with laughter as she tries unsuccessfully to pull away from her mother’s embrace. 

Lena laughs too as Sam and Ruby continue what is quickly turning into a full blown play fight, and then she finds herself suddenly emotional, and she turns away and takes a deep breath before she can cry. 

It’s then that she catches Kara’s eye. 

She still standing a way away, but instead of looking out over the bay like before, she’s watching them now. 

This time though, she looks almost embarrassed to have been caught staring, and she breaks her gaze and quickly looks down as soon as Lena looks over. 

Not quick enough for Lena to miss the broken smile on her face though. 

A broken smile that tells a hundred stories, nearly all of them worthy of breaking a person in two.

Lena knows that if she went over, they could talk about how much it sucks that some kids are loved and some aren’t, how much it sucks that some kids have parents and some don’t. She knows that she and Kara probably have so much in common, could probably be such great friends, if not more. 

But then she remembers that Kara isn’t like anyone she’s ever met before, and she remembers Alex’s warning and she remembers Kara telling her to stay away from her, and then her heart clenches a little painfully inside her chest. 

Kara wears her emptiness differently to Lena, but it’s there, plain as day. 

Lena offers a small smile as Kara looks up at her again, but it isn’t returned, and Lena is instead met with the same soft scowl she was met with the very first time she spoke to Kara, and then after a couple of seconds, Kara turns and walks away. 

 

The third time Lena sees Kara, she’s drunk. 

It’s Friday night, just under a week since she saw her at the park, and she and Sam are out celebrating Sam’s birthday. It’s only 10pm, but the two of them have been drinking since Sam dropped Ruby off at a friend’s house at 4, so they’re close to their peak already, not that either of them would ever admit that. 

They’re sitting at the bar, in the same bar from the night Kara and Lena met, four empty shot glasses in front of them, sweaty from spending the last half an hour dancing. 

Lena’s feeling a little unhinged, which is something she doesn’t let herself feel a lot, because feeling even a little out of control is Lena’s idea of a nightmare (having a history of childhood trauma has a tendency to make shame and embarrassment significantly harder to deal with, apparently, and being absolutely in control of situations helps lessen the chances of said emotions occurring) and she blames Sam’s influence (and the shots of vodka, of course) entirely. She prefers getting drunk in her apartment, a somber and maybe even slightly depressed kind of drunk, where the worst thing she can do is break something or cry whilst listening to She Will Be Loved on repeat. 

Being a happy and confident kind of drunk in a public place is a different story altogether and is really just a recipe for disaster. 

So when Lena spots Kara across the bar, seemingly oblivious as she reads her book just like before, she’s swallowing her last shot and heading over towards her before she even has time to think. Because if she’d had time to think, she’d have remembered everything she absolutely _should_ remember before approaching Kara completely inebriated, the way she’d approach any woman she found attractive. And those women usually didn’t punch holes in walls or, you know, potentially spy on her 350 feet in the air. 

“Are you following me?” Lena asks, loudly, but Kara doesn’t startle in the slightest, almost as if she knew Lena was coming even though that’s impossible because her eyes never once left the page of her book and the music is too loud for her to have heard. 

Kara looks up, looks half bored and half annoyed, and just shrugs. “I like this bar.” 

“But you were in the grocery store, and in the park, and now you’re here. Not to mention the other week after I finished work when I saw you barely two blocks from my apartment. Normally I’d think you just have a crush on me, Kara, but crushes don’t tend to be so fucking mean so maybe it’s something else,” Lena says, and she hates how bitter she sounds, how almost disappointed she sounds, how often her words slur. She almost mentions the incident in her office, but that sounds too ridiculous even under the influence, and there’s just no way she’s about to basically ask Kara if she can _fly_. 

She sits down on the stool next to Kara with as much grace as she can muster, which admittedly isn’t a lot. 

(She’s never drinking vodka again.) 

Kara visibly tenses as Lena sits, and Lena doesn’t know whether it’s the close proximity that causes the reaction, or whether it’s everything she’s just said. 

She almost apologises, because Lena’s instinct is always to apologise (hello mommy issues, again), but then she remembers everything Kara has said to her over the last few weeks without any remorse, and she keeps her mouth shut, forcing herself to make eye contact. 

Kara doesn’t look away, but Lena feels her take a long, controlled inhale. “Coincidence,” she says, and the word comes out through her teeth on the exhale. 

Lena laughs, sharply. “The Probability Paradox says otherwise.” 

Kara quirks a brow. “Explain that to me,” she says, and Lena’s momentarily taken aback because she’s sure this is the most genuine Kara has sounded so far. 

“A large number of uncertainties happening over a period of time creates certainty, does it not?” 

Kara thinks for a second before she shrugs again. “I guess so. But that still doesn’t mean that coincidences can’t happen. Scientifically I mean. Anomalous results occur all the time.”

It’s then that Lena realises how smart Kara is, and she hates that it makes her stomach flutter. Drunk or otherwise, the fact that Kara barely had to think for two seconds before such a complex paradox made sense impresses her. _A lot_. 

Lena almost laughs after that, because she can’t believe they’re actually almost having a legitimate debate about causality right now. 

“A lot of philosophers would argue otherwise,” Lena replies, before calling over the bartender and ordering a whiskey. 

“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who gives a shit about philosophy,” Kara says, not taking her eyes off of Lena as she pays for her drink. 

“You say that like you have any idea what kind of person I am.” Lena swallows a mouthful of whiskey as she meets Kara’s eyes again. The burn of it as it flows down her throat makes her feel brave. “And besides, there’s a lot of philosophy in statistics. _‘We do not study the mechanism of rain; only whether it will rain.’_ ” 

“Dennis Lindley,” Kara says, correctly naming the philosopher Lena had just been quoting. 

Lena swallows hard. 

Kara stares at her, _into_ her, and suddenly Lena swears her features soften and it makes her wonder how broken Kara is inside. Lena doesn’t completely understand why it’s her her softness that makes her wonder, but it does. But it’s undeniable, because no one can look that soft without a little pain, and Lena aches to reach out and touch her. 

She wonders how long it’s been since Kara was touched. 

“Nothing about you makes sense, does it?” Lena asks, her voice low and teetering on the verge of fascination.

Only it’s not teetering at all, it’s over the edge and completely consumed.

Kara’s hand twitches, like she wants to reach out, and Lena is moments from meeting her halfway when Kara suddenly crosses her arms over her chest. She doesn’t break the closeness between them though, just focuses hard on Lena’s face, a look of unexplainable determination in her eyes as though she’s fighting something deep inside herself, testing the waters to see if they’re safe.

“Lena, you should— You should go,” Kara says, but there’s no commitment behind her words. 

In fact, if Lena were another whiskey in, she’d probably easily mistake the words for _please don’t go_. But she isn’t, and so the only thing she can do is question them and hope. 

“I’m not leaving,” Lena responds, leaning closer. “But you are more than welcome to.” 

She means for it to sound intimidating, challenging maybe, but instead her words come out a little breathlessly. Her words come out like a lie. 

Kara closes her eyes, and Lena’s grateful because it gives her the opportunity to count the scatter of freckles on her cheeks. 

“Please, Lena,” Kara whispers a long minute or so later, and Lena isn’t sure what she’s even asking anymore. 

“I can handle it. Whatever it is. Whatever you _are_. I promise I can handle it,” Lena whispers back, and it scares her how much she means it. 

The admission dangles in the air between them, the admission that Lena _knows_ that something isn’t completely _normal_ about Kara. 

Kara sighs, and Lena feels it in every inch of her body, before she opens her eyes. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” 

“Try me.” 

For a second, Lena actually thinks Kara might. For a second, Kara looks as though she’s about to. 

“I have to go,” Kara says, and with her words, Lena’s heart clenches and an unsolicited wave of panic sweeps through her. 

She’s powerless to do anything but watch as Kara closes her book and stands. 

“Kara, wait I—“ 

“No, Lena. This is- You are-“ 

Kara doesn’t finish either of her sentences. She just leaves before Lena can even register that she’s gone. Lena stares at the now empty space for a long time before suddenly, two arms are wrapping around her neck from behind. 

“Lena, I’m like really fucking drunk,” Sam says, and Lena feels her rest her forehead on the back of her neck. 

Lena laughs, and admittedly it sounds a little strange considering the heaviness of the moment she was just in, but it feels good to laugh nonetheless. 

“Mhmm, yeah me too,” she agrees, rubbing her hands over her best friend’s forearms. “Vodka was a bad idea. How and why did you talk me into vodka?”

“We’re getting too old for this.” 

Lena laughs again, and then turns in her seat to face Sam, taking her hand. “Speak for yourself, grandma. I’m not 28 for another year and a half,” she says, before she stands, (almost falls because _wow_ she really is drunk) and then the two of them head for the exit. 

“Did I see you with Kara just now?” Sam asks as they leave the bar. 

“I’m surprised you saw anything given that you were too busy texting Alex to even notice I was gone,” Lena laughs. 

“I just realised that I love her, Lena. Like I’m really fucking in love with her. It’s so weird. And so I had to tell her, you know? Maybe over text after god knows how many shots wasn’t the best way to tell her, but I couldn’t not tell her,” Sam says, and then she blushes, she _actually blushes_ , and it just makes Lena smile. “But I’m offended that you think I wouldn’t notice you’d gone! You are my favourite person in the whole entire world and I love you so much so _of course_ I noticed! How did it go? With Kara I mean.” 

Lena sighs, because she literally doesn’t know how to even answer that question. But drunk Lena is an optimist, apparently, because she eventually says, “I think we’re getting somewhere. Maybe. I don’t know.” 

Sam’s response is to start humming the wedding march, loudly and completely out of key, and no amount of Lena sticking her fingers in her ears and begging her to stop makes any difference. By the time their car arrives a couple of minutes later, the two of them are laughing hysterically with tears streaming down their cheeks. 

 

It takes two days for Lena’s hangover to clear completely. Saturday and Sunday are spent mostly on her couch, Sam at one end, Lena at the other and Ruby squeezed in between, and they slowly make their way through eight movies and three take-outs, infrequently napping every now and then. 

Sam leaves for a few hours on Saturday afternoon to spend time with Alex, and whilst she’s gone, Ruby offers to make Lena pancakes and Lena tells her that she’s the only person in the entire world who has ever made her want kids, and when Ruby’s response is that Lena doesn’t have to have kids because _she’s_ basically her non-legally adopted daughter at this point, Lena feels overcome with emotions and cries into the couch cushion a little. Ruby, bless her heart, just quietly busies herself in the kitchen and attempts to make pancakes, leaving Lena to recover alone after being so casually being reminded that she’s loved and needed from someone who genuinely has no hidden intentions, from someone who genuinely has no hidden intentions and somehow sees her as some kind of mother figure in her life, a positive one at that. 

She blames her hangover for the tears and when she apologises for crying, Ruby just calls her a loser and starts a tickle fight. 

When Lena wakes on Monday morning, sans hangover, finally, she heads into work a lot earlier than usual after the realisation that she hasn’t done _anything_ over the weekend. She hasn’t had a work-free weekend, ever, really, and there’s nothing like the panic and fear of underachieving to kick start the week.

She’s at her office by 6:00am, before the sun has even begun to rise, and besides security, she’s pretty much alone in the building. She’s too busy organising tasks inside her head and going over the day’s schedule to notice the bunch of flowers on her desk until she’s practically standing right in front of it. 

At first, her skin prickles a little at the sight of them. Nothing like this ever gets to her office without being cleared by security, but since her office has been locked all weekend, she has no idea how they’ve even made it to her desk, let alone been checked for any potential threats. She glances quickly around her office, reassures herself that she did indeed have to unlock the door just now and that it hadn’t been left open, and then notes that all the windows are closed. She checks the door that leads out onto her balcony too, and finds that securely locked as well. 

Heading back over to her desk, she notices a handwritten note tucked in amongst the flowers. 

 

_Lena,_

_I’m not very good at this but I know I owe you an apology. For a lot of things, but mostly just for being a fucking asshole. You didn’t deserve that. I hope you like flowers._

_Kara_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay in updating. my brain hates me sometimes


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i deleted and rewrote this three times and i still hate it but i needed to get it posted before i ripped out my eyes so here we are

_Are you awake????_

**It’s 6:04am. So no**

_Can I call you????_

**I’m sleeping**

_Sam. Kara sent me flowers_

**Suddenly I’m awake**

_KARA SENT ME FLOWERS_

Lena’s in the middle of composing another text all in caps when Sam’s face appears on the screen. She accepts the FaceTime call excitedly.

“Show me the flowers!” Sam says before Lena can even say anything.

She’s still lying in bed looking as though she woke up barely a minute ago, the covers pulled up to her chin and her glasses on, but she’s smiling and Lena appreciates her so much. 

She flips the screen and shows Sam the flowers, and she’s glad that the camera isn’t on her face because she kind of hates how much she’s smiling. Because they’re just flowers. They’re _just flowers_. 

Except they’re not just flowers. They’re flowers from Kara.

“That’s the gayest bunch of flowers I’ve ever seen. I mean, they’re so _colourful_. There’s literally every shade of pink in the lesbian flag right there in front of you,” Sam laughs, warmly. “And is that a handwritten note?! What does it say?!” 

Lena tells her, clearly unable to hide her definitely dopey grin from her voice as she does so because when she finishes and flips the camera back to her face, Sam just looks at her, smiling knowingly. 

“What?” Lena questions, trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach.

Sam rolls her eyes. “You have got it bad, my friend.” 

“They’re just flowers!” Lena insists, but she feels her cheeks blushing anyway. 

“You just keep telling yourself that. I’ll see you at work,” Sam laughs, disconnecting the call.

 

Credit where credit is due, Lena does try. 

She moves the flowers from her desk and places them in a vase on the counter across the room and only spends a minute, tops, staring at them and thinking about Kara. (Okay so maybe it’s more like 3 minutes, but who is counting?) 

After that, she heads back downstairs and grabs herself a coffee from the deli next door, and if she half hopes she’ll bump into Kara on the way, who can really blame her?

It wouldn’t exactly be the strangest thing in the world given how many times she and Kara have been in the same place at the same time over the last month.

As she waits for her coffee, her mind wanders back to Friday night, back to the moment she and Kara shared when Lena had admitted that she knew something wasn’t completely right about Kara. 

Her memories are a little hazy thanks to the alcohol, but she knows Kara hadn’t denied anything, and the fact that that doesn’t scare her still surprises her. It definitely unnerves her, but she isn’t scared. 

She knows Kara had been right on the edge of opening up to her; she had seen the hint of relief in her eyes as she’d thought about it. The defeat as she’d realised she couldn’t, for whatever reason. 

Whatever Kara is hiding must be weighing so heavily on her, and Lena aches to be the one to help her feel a little lighter. 

Lena doesn’t have many secrets, not anymore, but she remembers being a lot younger, back when her emotions were something she had always tried so hard to hide, even when every inch of her was dying to open up to someone. She remembers almost every single time she’d been about to ask for help as a child, but then she’d hear Lillian’s condescending voice inside her head telling her she doesn’t have time to listen, telling her not to be so silly, telling her to find someone else to bother. She’d had Lex for awhile, and he’d always listened to her, but even he had stopped wanting her around after a while, and eventually Lena had learned that it was best to just keep her mouth shut, because nobody wanted to hear what she had to say anyway. 

Thankfully, Sam had been the one to help her out of that mindset eventually, (Sam and a lot of therapy, actually) but it hadn’t been easy and even now, there’s still a part of Lena that can’t help thinking that everyone is better off if she just keeps things to herself, hides herself away. And Lena will never forget how crippling the weight of that can feel, how lonely it can feel, how achingly empty it can feel, and she hates to think that Kara is feeling the same way. 

She knows it isn’t the same, that her issues with her adoptive mother can never compare to whatever Kara has to hide, but she hopes all the same that maybe one day Kara will open up to her, even just a little. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to help, or even if Kara will let her try, but she hopes all the same.

She knows that somewhere in all of it, in everything she’s been through and everything Kara is hiding, there has to be some common ground between them, something that helps them relate to each other, something they can build a bond from.

Retrieving her coffee, Lena goes back up to her office, smiling pleasantly at the people she passes on her way now that the building is getting busier as the hour slips closer towards that of a suitable working hour. It’s still early, around 7, but the end of the year is always busy for every department, and Lena always makes sure her employees receive nice bonuses come December which definitely helps keep spirits high and motivation flowing. 

Lena knows her first meeting of the day isn’t until 8:45am and besides a quick briefing with her assistant of the day’s schedule when she comes in at 8, she has over an hour to get started on some of things she neglected to do over the weekend. 

And Lena really does have every intention of working. 

But the flowers from Kara are in her peripheral the entire time though, and seeing them reminds Lena of Kara herself, of the softer moments between them even though they’re few, particularly the last time they saw each other. 

The softness of the petals reminds Lena of the softness of Kara’s features, of the softness behind Kara’s eyes. 

For all the work Lena actually gets done that morning, she may as well have slept in. 

 

Over the next week, it turns out that wanting to bump into Kara and _trying_ to bump into Kara are two completely different things. 

Lena looks for her everywhere, hopes that they’ll somehow end up in the same place at the same time as they have done before, but six days later she’s still seen and heard nothing of Kara. 

She finds herself not entirely accidentally visiting the places she’d seen Kara before: the bar, the park, the grocery store. She even walks home from work every night for almost a week hoping to find her. 

By the following Monday, she’s starting to think she’ll never see Kara again.

“Be honest, do you think I’m acting a little crazy?” Lena asks Sam as they’re grabbing dinner that night. 

They’re in Lena’s office, Ruby is lying on the couch doing her homework while she and Sam take half an hour to eat before getting back to work. Picnics on the floor of her office with takeout food have become increasingly more common the closer to the end of the year they get, where every single deadline seems to fall at once. Lena likes to give the company two weeks off over Christmas, so the days get longer and longer once mid-November arrives to prepare for it. 

Sam chews her food slowly before she answers. “Honestly? A little. But that’s nothing out of the ordinary for you, really,” she laughs, nudging Lena’s foot with her own. 

“What else am I supposed to do when I don’t even have her number?” 

Chuckling quietly, Sam grins. “Maybe you could speak to Skye in IT. Maybe she’d be able to help you. I’m sure she’d be able to hack into something to find Kara’s number for you. Maybe she could even find her address and social security number for you too…” Sam’s chuckle becomes a full blown laugh then, and she’s clearly pleased with her joke, even if it is at the expense of Lena’s sanity. “I’m sure Skye misses your visits now you have someone else to crush on and would be more than happy to assist you.”

Lena resists the urge to throw lettuce at Sam’s head. “And you’re the one who doesn’t shut up about how she’s straight!” 

“Still, I’m sure she was flattered to be the object of your attention anyway. I bet she’d be upset to find out that you never started walking around hoping to bump into _her_ on purpose.” 

Lena rolls her eyes and ignores Sam’s playful teasing. “You know, I’m so glad you find this so funny,” she says, sarcastically. “But I literally just want to thank Kara for the flowers, that’s all.” 

“Sure you do,” Sam says, just as Ruby says exactly the same thing in near enough the exact same sardonic tone.

Lena glares at each of them in turn, Sam giggling quietly into her salad and Ruby innocently going back to her algebra. “If you two are gonna be mean, I’m going home.”

“C’mon, Lena. It’s okay to admit you have a crush!” Ruby smiles, chewing on her pencil. 

“Oh, you wanna talk about crushes, Rubes?” Lena says, raising her eyebrows and pointing her fork at Ruby. “Who do you have a crush on?” 

Ruby blushes, burying her face back in her homework. “No one,” she mutters. 

“Leave my daughter and her crush on the girl she sits next to in economics alone, Lena,” Sam teases, laughing. 

_“Mom!_ ” Ruby whines, turning onto her back, pulling her textbook over her face. 

“It’s okay, Ruby. Your mom told Alex the other night that she’s in love with her. After a few too many drinks and over text, can I just add. So I think out of the three of us, she has it the worst.” 

Sam shoves a forkful of chicken into her mouth and mumbles something incoherent that sounds not all that dissimilar to a curse, but Ruby and Lena just laugh and pretend not to hear. 

“Let’s go back to talking about Lena’s crush,” Sam mutters, her cheeks pink.

“In all honesty, I would actually appreciate some advice. Do you think I should just forget about her?” Lena asks. “I mean, flowers aside, it’s not like Kara has seemed particularly interested anyway.” 

She tries to sound unaffected, but she knows she doesn’t quite manage it. 

“If she isn’t interested, she’s an idiot. And I’m not just saying that as your best friend, I’m saying that as a lesbian,” Sam laughs. “And honestly, Lena, I think you need to just stop looking for her. I’m sure you’ll find each other again when you’re meant to.” 

Lena considers Sam’s words carefully, and even though she knows her best friend is right, she’s never been good at waiting and seeing. 

“I just wish she’d left her number, I guess…” Lena says, sighing. “You know I’m not very good at leaving things up to fate.”

“Before you ask, I am _not_ sneaking around trying to find it from Alex,” Sam warns. “I know how your brain works. I’m a terrible liar for one, and two, I hate keeping things from her. So no, not happening. I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to wait this one out.” 

 

So Lena waits.

Another month passes, and suddenly it’s the week before Christmas. 

Lena’s grateful that the month is full of endless distractions in the form of work given the time of year, because throwing herself into L Corp helps her forget about Kara. Working every hour under the sun and then some also helps Lena forget about the fact that Christmas is approaching, given that the holidays aren’t exactly her favourite time of year. 

Even though Lena’s been spending Christmas with Sam and Ruby for the last 5 years, and she feels more at home with the two of them than she has ever felt anywhere else in her life, the holidays still leave Lena feeling a little empty inside, still leave her thinking too much about a life she’ll never truly be able to escape from no matter how much time passes by. 

She doesn’t really remember Christmas with her parents, given that she was so young when they died, and then Christmases with Lillian and Lex had barely been Christmases at all. 

Lena had spent most of them in her room, alone, missing her parents, wondering how different her life would be if they were still alive. 

She has very vague memories of the last Christmas she’d spent with her parents, vague memories of warmth and laughter and piles of gifts and sitting on her mother’s lap surrounded by discarded wrapping paper, White Christmas playing quietly in the background. 

But Christmas with the Luthors had been entirely different.

Fake smiles and fake laughter and keeping up appearances and lavish, expensive gifts that were to be appreciated but not played with. Dinner was with people Lena barely knew, Lillian’s business associates and the like, and she and Lex were told to keep quiet, to only speak if they were spoken to, and to leave the table right after dessert. As Lex got older, he was allowed to stay long after dessert, and Lena had always hoped that one year she too would be allowed to drink wine and talk politics with everyone else, but the day never came. 

Lena does have a few nice memories, from when she and Lex were both much younger, but nowadays even those leave a sour taste in her mouth and an ache in her chest. 

She has memories of sneaking out of the house with Lex when they were supposed to be asleep into the woodland by the house to build snowmen and make snow angels and have snowball fights, of Lex chasing her around the trees until her cheeks were warm from both the exercise and from laughter. Memories of board games in front of the open fire in Lex’s bedroom, chess games that Lex always _pretended_ he’d let Lena win” because it was Christmas”, the bone deep satisfaction of knowing she was just better at it than him after a while, that he hadn’t let her win at all. Memories of creeping downstairs to listen in on Lillian’s conversations after dinner, the two of them trying not to giggle or make any noises as they imitated her fake laughter at her business colleagues jokes, as they straightened their backs and waggled their fingers and made fun of the way she talked. Memories of Lex letting Lena talk about her parents, of Lex holding her hand when she got upset, of Lex reminding her that even though her parents were gone, she wasn’t alone and he loved her and thought she was brave. Memories of the two of them reading books together afterwards, of Lex always letting Lena pick which story she wanted to hear. 

Lex made Christmas almost bearable, but once he started staying after dinner with his mother at the dinner table while Lena was sent upstairs to bed, Christmas just wasn’t the same once again. 

And then Lena was sent across the ocean to boarding school and it was left up to her whether she came back for the holidays, and even though she had a choice, she could tell that Lillian and Lex preferred Christmas without her, and so more often than not, she’d spend Christmas Day reading and studying in her dorm on the other side of the world, almost missing the other girls who were all back home with their families even though she didn’t particularly like any of them, because at least their incessant chatter helped distract Lena from the thoughts inside her head. 

Thoughts of how much she missed her parents, thoughts of how much she missed the Lex she had grown up with, thoughts of how much she just wished that she wasn’t alone. 

Christmas nowadays just has a tendency to remind Lena of that loneliness, of all the people she’s lost, so it’s more than safe to say that it definitely isn’t her favourite time of year. 

The week before L Corp closes for the holidays is the busiest week of the year by far. She feels the pressure far more than she normally does, feels the weight of the city on her shoulders, feels the crippling expectations she’s always been taught to set for herself weighing heavy over her, and if she sleeps too little and drinks too much over the course of the week, then who can blame her? 

By the time Friday afternoon arrives, Lena’s exhausted, but seeing the faces of her employees as they receive their holiday bonuses before heading home for two well deserved weeks off makes every late night and early morning, every heightened temper and insufferable board meeting absolutely worth it, and Lena smiles to herself, grateful that her less-than-desirable past hasn’t turned her into a Scrooge. 

Lena’s the last to leave on Friday evening, and when she finally does, her heart feels warmer than it has in a long time, and she finds herself almost inexplicably excited for some time off. She’ll still work over the holidays, but she makes a promise to herself every year that she will only work from home, and only for a maximum of six hours a day, and over the last few years especially, she’s become good at actually sticking to that promise. 

She has a few days to herself over the next couple of days since Sam and Ruby are taking their annual trip to Sam’s parents house in Colorado, and Lena plans to catch up on some TV, maybe watch a few Christmas movies if she feels like it, try out some new recipes, go to her usual yoga class more than the once a week she usually has time for. 

Later that night, Lena’s elbow deep in baking quinoa cookies when her phone rings. Licking the cookie dough from her fingers, Lena sees that it’s from security downstairs and answers the call 

“Ms Luthor, there’s someone here to see you. Kara Danvers? She says she’s a friend but I’ve never seen her here before so I wanted to check with you that you’re expecting her.” 

Lena freezes. 

She vaguely remembers giving Kara her address what feels like months ago now, telling her that if she needed a friend then she could come to her, but even in the moment Lena had never expected Kara to actually show up at her apartment at all, much less now after she’s spent the last month half convinced she’d literally just imagined Kara given that she hasn’t seen her at all. 

Memories of their last encounter fly around in her brain, her heart skips in her chest, and it hits her with full force just how much she’s missed seeing Kara over the last few weeks. 

And it’s that realisation alone that has Lena telling security to send her up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this was boring and nothing really happened but i needed some more background about lena and i knew how this chapter was going to end, i just had absolutely no idea how i was going to get to the ending and it was 28 degrees celsius here in the uk today so my brain was struggling a little. i promise the next chapter will be better 
> 
> thanks for sticking with this story! i appreciate it so much :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just want to add before this chapter that my knowledge of super lore is limited to the show, fanfic (okay mostly fanfic) and a vague interest in the comics so if anything doesn't really add up, please forgive me!!

Lena knows the very precise amount of time it takes for Kara to knock on the door of her apartment. 

2 minutes and 32 seconds. 152 seconds. 152,000 milliseconds. 

In that time, the universe will have expanded by 34,200 miles. In that time, three hundred and eighty million chemical reactions will have taken place in the human body. 

In that time, Lena paces back and forth, smoothes invisible creases from her clothes countless times, runs her fingers through her hair enough times that she starts to feel static on her skin and runs over an embarrassing number of conversation starters inside her head.

(None of which she actually needs, in the end.) 

When she hears the knock on her door, she jumps even though she’s expecting it. She almost laughs and almost blushes at how wired up she is. 

_It’s just Kara_ , she tells herself. 

_It’s just Kara_ , she whispers as she crosses the room to answer the door. 

_It’s just Kara, beautiful, mysterious, fascinating, gorgeous Kara..._

When Lena eventually opens the door, she wishes she’d paused to take a breath beforehand. Because the gasp she inhales when she takes in the sight of Kara, beautiful, mysterious, fascinating, gorgeous Kara standing in her doorway in a deep blue button down and plum coloured pants that cling to her every curve as though they were made for no one else on the planet, her blonde hair pulled back and away from her face, not there as a distraction the way it usually is, a distraction from how painfully and radiantly blue Kara’s eyes are behind her glasses, is loud in the otherwise silent hallway and Lena hates herself for it. 

Thankfully, if Kara notices it, she doesn’t say. 

“Hey, Lena,” Kara says, shoving her hands in her pockets. 

Lena tries to remind herself of all the mean things Kara has said to her before so that that simple action doesn’t make Lena forget her own name. 

(She’s unsuccessful, but she tries.)

Kara looks nervous, and it almost makes Lena relax a little to know she isn’t the only one. “Hi,” Lena replies. “Do you wanna come in?” 

Kara shrugs. “Is that okay?” 

“Of course! Of course. Come in,” she smiles, pretending not to notice how weird her voice sounds, willing her heart to _please_ calm down a little inside her chest as she takes in the sight of Kara in her doorway. 

The corners of Kara’s mouth twitch up into what almost looks like a small smile as she enters Lena’s apartment, unsure and apprehensive but a smile all the same, and Lena’s heart skips a beat. 

“Can I get you anything? A drink or something?” Lena asks, forcing the words out before she can get too lost in admiring Kara from behind as she closes the door. 

Kara shakes her head. “I’m good, thanks. I actually don’t even know why I’m here. I was just walking around and then I remembered you telling me you lived nearby and then suddenly I was outside your building. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.” 

Kara looks so nervous, and it’s so unlike the Kara she’s seen before that Lena forgets that this Kara is the same Kara who made her shiver in fear. 

“Well, I’m glad you came. You didn’t interrupt anything other than me trying to bake cookies, so don’t worry about that. You’re always welcome here,” Lena replies, reaching into the fridge to pour herself a drink. 

Kara inhales slowly and deeply through her nose at Lena’s words, and the same expression crosses over her face that Lena saw at the bar, one that looks almost as though Kara is fighting against something deep inside her. Lena sees Kara’s eyes dart towards the door. 

“You don’t have to go, Kara,” Lena says, softly, seating herself behind the counter in the kitchen, thankful for the ice cold glass of water in her hand because the feel of it against her hot skin is grounding enough that she can actually think a little easier. “I’ll stay over here if it helps you. We can just talk. Or we can just sit here, we don’t have to talk. Whatever you need.” 

Kara stares at Lena, an unreadable expression on her face, before she moves slowly across the room and sits on the couch furthest away. Lena doesn’t say anything, she just watches and waits for Kara to make herself as comfortable as she can given the circumstances, takes the opportunity to think about how much she enjoys the sight of Kara in her home. 

Kara’s eyes roam around the room, taking everything in, and Lena fights back the urge to fidget in her chair, fights back all the many questions on the tip of her tongue. She takes a sip of her water just for something to do. 

There’s a pile of books on Lena’s coffee table and she watches as Kara leans over and reads the spines of them, watches as she picks up the book from the top of the pile and turns it over in her hands to look at the synopsis on the back. 

She touches everything so delicately, her long, deft fingers looking as though they barely even skim the object in her hands, and the sight makes Lena question why she ever felt afraid of her. Nothing about Kara like this makes Lena feel anything but safe. 

“Have you read this?” Kara asks suddenly, opening the book, a copy of Salt to the Sea, and flicking through the pages. 

“Not yet. I put those there to remind me to read more often, now that I have some time off of work. Have you?” 

Kara shakes her head. “It looks good, though. Historical fiction is fascinating.” 

“You can borrow it if you like? And then when you’re done, you can tell me if it’s worth reading. I only have two weeks of free time, so I wouldn’t want to waste any of it reading a book with a shitty ending,” Lena smiles, and if the main incentive for lending Kara her book is that she’ll have a reason to see her again when she gives it back, then who can blame her?

Kara looks up at her, eyes twinkling with something not dissimilar to disbelief. “It’s okay, I can probably ask Alex for-“ 

“I insist. Take the book, Kara.” 

Kara glances back at the book in her hand, almost as though she’s in two minds as to whether or not to just place it back on the pile or slip it into her purse. Thankfully, she decides on the latter. Lena smiles. 

“Thank you. I’ll have it back to you in no time. I’m a quick reader,” Kara says, putting the book into her bag. 

“I don’t doubt that. Every time I’ve seen you, you’ve had a book in your hand.” 

“Yeah, I like reading. When I first came here, I was-“ Kara stops, almost as though she’s about to say something she shouldn’t. She looks down at her lap, fiddles with her glasses. Lena sees her visibly shrink inside herself then, her shoulders falling and her head dropping, and she looks so small and all Lena wants to do is go to her and hold her hand. 

“It’s okay, Kara. You can talk to me,” Lena offers, because she knows words are all she can offer right now. 

Kara looks back at Lena, and if Lena were anyone else, she’d probably mistake the look on Kara’s face for a dismissive one. But Lena is Lena and she knows it isn’t. She knows that the flicker of emotion, of discomfort, comes only from being alone for so long, from someone saying words you aren’t used to hearing, but words you’ve always needed to hear. 

Lena both sees and hears her sigh. “Lena…” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lena replies, hoping to convey with just her voice how much she mean it. 

Kara meets Lena’s gaze from across the room, and suddenly the atmosphere is heavy and Lena can’t quite remember how they went so quickly from talking about books to this. 

“When I came here, I didn’t speak much English. I mean, I could speak basic stuff but it wasn’t really necessary back home. So Alex gave me lots of books to read so I could learn it. And I guess I just enjoyed the feeling of reading. So even though I know English really well now, I still read all the time. I read several books a day sometimes. Not that that’s all that impressive considering I don’t really have anything else to do besides read. I’m still... _adjusting_ to doing more than this,” Kara says, her eyes never leaving Lena’s, almost as if she’s watching intently for any reaction. Lena makes sure to keep a neutral expression, because the last thing she wants to do is scare Kara away when they’re finally getting somewhere. “I used to read all the time back home. And it’s not the same, reading books in English, but I like to learn and having lots of books to read is a nice distraction.”

“Don’t you have any books that you used to read back home, here with you?” Lena asks, just she’s so curious as to what happened to Kara’s old life that she seems to want to talk about so much. 

Kara shakes her head, her eyes momentarily flickering with something that looks a little like panic and loss at the same time. “No. Everything from back home got left behind,” she says, and Lena doesn’t miss the way her voice cracks, just a little, but she pretends she does. 

Lena gets the impression that when Kara says _back home_ , she doesn’t just mean back home in another country. The way Kara talks about _back home_ makes Lena consider that maybe she means somewhere else entirely. 

Like another planet, perhaps. 

Lena has so many questions, but she doesn’t ask any of them. But she wants to. She really wants to. 

Listening to Kara talk makes Lena wonder about so much. She wonders if Kara has anyone at all that she can talk to, uninterrupted, for as long as she likes. She hopes she does. 

“When you asked me the night we met if I was a classics kind of girl, I’m not. I’ve read all the classics, Jane Eyre and Great Expectations and Little Women, but they aren’t my favourites. But I like the historical fiction. It helps me learn a lot. Because there's so much history on-“ Kara stops, catches herself, rethinks the end of her sentence. “There’s a lot of history _here_.” 

It makes Lena smile that Kara remembers the night they met, enough so that she can remember such a seemingly insignificant detail.

“You also said you read fanfiction,” Lena grins.

Kara huffs a small laugh through her nose. “Yeah. I guess that’s what’s wrong with classics. There aren’t enough about women who love other women.” 

“Maybe you just aren’t reading the right kind of classics?” Lena smirks, raising an eyebrow. 

When Kara blushes, softly but visibly, Lena’s brain short circuits and she almost chokes on her own tongue at how beautiful the pink in Kara’s cheeks is. Kara pushes her glasses up her nose, and then her hand pauses by her brow, as if she’s about to play with her hair before realising that it’s tied back. It scares Lena how badly she just wants to take Kara’s hand, to ease some of the nerves away by stroking over her knuckles softly. 

Lena swallows another mouthful of cold water. 

Kara stands and walks over towards the window then, probably just for something to do to deflect from the sudden heat of the moment, and Lena almost physically aches inside to stay sitting where she is when every inch of her wants to go towards Kara. But she grips the edge of the counter and reminds herself that Kara needs space, reminds herself that Kara could so easily walk out of here and never come back if she makes one wrong move, reminds herself that Kara deserves to feel safe somewhere, and she wants that somewhere to be _here_ more than anything. 

Kara’s quiet for a long time, just staring out of the window into the night. Lena knows the view from her top floor apartment is breathtaking; it’s one of the things that made her choose this building in the first place, and she lets Kara just appreciate the sight of the city in a very comfortable silence.

While Kara is admiring the view of the city, Lena admires the view of Kara. 

Ten minutes or so pass by, and Kara shows no signs of moving, so Lena quietly opens up her laptop, deciding she might as well get a little work done. She makes slow and gentle movements, not wanting to break the silence that has wrapped around them like a blanket, and every now and then Lena glances over the top of her screen, finding each time that Kara is still gazing out of the window. 

Lena finds that she enjoys the peace between them immensely. Enjoys being with Kara like this, together but apart at the same time, not talking, just sharing a space.

After awhile, Lena becomes so focused on a proposal that she almost forgets Kara is even there. 

When she looks up maybe 15 minutes later, she finds Kara watching her. 

Her expression is soft, curious though, and when Lena offers a small smile, Kara returns it seemingly without hesitation.

”Isn’t it a little torturous, being able to literally see the place you work from your living room window?” Kara suddenly asks, an amused smile on her face.

Lena laughs, glancing over Kara’s shoulder at the bright, white L Corp sign, glowing in the dark in the distance. “I guess so,” she chuckles. “But I love what I do, and the ever present reminder that I always have work to do is also quite nice in a way. It means I don’t ever get complacent.”

Kara nods, her expression thoughtful.

“Can I ask you something?” Kara asks, moving to sit back down on the couch. 

Lena closes her laptop and rests her elbow on the counter, her chin on her hand. “Of course.” 

Kara thinks for a second, and Lena can visibly see it, can visibly see her phrasing her question inside her head. It makes Lena wonder, now she knows that Kara had to learn English as a second language and seemingly did so in such little time, just how much knowledge she has about other things too. Their brief conversation about philosophy at the bar was enlightening enough, but now that Lena knows more about Kara, about her enjoying books, speaking more than one language, possibly coming from an entirely different planet, she can’t help thinking of all the things _she_ could learn from her. 

Lena’s itching to ask _so many_ questions. 

“You’re pretty important, right? In terms of the city and the work you do, I mean,” Kara asks, eventually. 

Lena laughs dismissively and runs her hand through her hair. “I don’t know about that…” 

“But L Corp helps a lot of people, and that’s all on you, isn’t it?” 

“I couldn’t help even a fraction of the people I do without having such incredible partners, such incredible associates. They’re the ones who do most of the hard work, I can assure you.” 

“But everyone who works at L Corp is simply an extension of you, right? That’s the way it looks to me anyway.” 

Lena blushes, almost uncomfortable at Kara’s praise. “Was that the question you wanted to ask?” she asks, trying to change the subject. 

Kara shakes her head. “How did you end up CEO? I mean, not that I’m doubting your intelligence or anything, you just barely look a day over 20 and so it’s pretty impressive that you’re holding up such a huge company.” 

Lena laughs, complimented. “I’ll be sure to tell Sam that you said I barely look 20. That will really piss her off,” she chuckles. “But in answer to your question, I ended up CEO completely accidentally. It wasn’t supposed to be mine. The company, I mean. When Lillian eventually stepped down, not by choice can I add, Lex was supposed to take over.” 

“So what happened? Why didn’t he?”

Lena pauses, suddenly unsure whether she wants to talk about this. It’s not a part of her life that she finds particularly easy to talk about, nor is it a part of her life that she ever really wants to talk about. But then she considers just how much it must have taken for Kara to open up to her tonight, even just a little, and Lena decides she can only offer the same in return. 

“Remember what I told you that first night? About my brother trying to kill me?” 

Kara nods, her eyes curious and attentive. If she’s surprised that Lena has brought up her brother, she doesn’t mention it.

“Lillian got sick, and it didn’t matter how smart Lex and I were, nothing we tried made any difference. We couldn’t save her. Not with technology or modified medicine or anything. Not even with all the money in the world. After she died, Lex blamed me. I think he blamed me because he couldn’t bear the guilt of blaming himself, really. But it ate him alive, sent him insane. Hence the attempted murder,” Lena laughs. It lacks humour completely, but an emotionless laugh is easier to deal with than the actual emotions Lena has learned to bury deep inside her whenever she thinks about what happened between her and Lex. “Hence also why I ended up with the company and not him. It’d be eating Lillian alive if she was still here, that the company is mine now. Because I’m not a _real_ Luthor.” 

Kara doesn’t speak for a long time. 

Lena watches Kara’s face, watches her thinking, watches her trying to make sense of everything. 

It surprises Lena, how good it feels to talk about all of that with someone who might possibly also understand what it’s like to be left alone in the end. 

“What are you thinking, Kara?” Lena asks, eventually. 

Kara stares back at her, her gaze soft. “What happened to Lillian… It wasn’t your fault.” 

Lena blinks. “I know.” 

“Do you?” 

Lena shivers, Kara’s question catching her off guard. 

“I do. I didn’t always but… I do now.” 

Kara watches her for a few seconds before she nods, slowly, clearly satisfied that Lena is telling the truth. She looks as though she wants to ask more, looks as though she’s just about to, but Lena suddenly feels a little overwhelmed talking about her family. She usually saves these kinds of conversations for therapy, and she hates giving into emotions like this at home, her safe place where she’s always tried to forget about her past.

“What about _your_ family?” Lena asks, deciding to throw caution to the wind and ask just one of the questions she’s dying to ask, dying also to change the subject so that she can stop talking about Lex and Lillian. “I mean your family here, in National City.” 

For a split second, Kara gets the faintest hint of a smile on her face. But it disappears as quickly as it had come, replaced by a frown. The gaze behind her eyes is heavy, saying much more than Lena guesses her words ever could. 

“They gave up a lot for me. But it wasn’t worth it. I know that’s what they think now,” Kara says, meeting Lena’s eyes again with her own. 

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Lena offers, the ache to hold Kara’s hand back in full force. “But I’m sure that’s not true.”

“You don’t know them. You don’t know _me_. So you don’t get to say that,” Kara replies, the softness gone from her voice, replaced by the same bitterness that Lena has heard before. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-“ 

“Forget it, Lena. I should probably go,” Kara interrupts, standing up and slipping her purse over her shoulder. 

“Will you come back?” Lena asks, surprising herself, because she’d only meant to think that, not say it out loud. “I mean, you have to come back. Because you have my book, right?” 

Lena forces a smile onto her face, desperate to lighten the mood. Kara doesn’t smile back. 

She looks at Lena for what feels like a lifetime, a blank expression on her face, a hint of _something_ in her eyes that Lena can’t quite put a name to, before she takes a deep, controlled breath. On the exhale, she smiles. It’s small, but it’s a smile. “I’ll come back.” 

“As soon as you’re done reading?” 

Kara almost laughs, Lena can tell. Her mouth curls up into a slightly bigger smile and amusement shines in her eyes. “I’ll be done reading tonight. But maybe I’ll see you after the holidays. You probably have plans anyway,” she says. 

Lena shrugs. “Christmas isn’t the easiest holiday for me. It would be nice if I didn’t have to be alone _all_ the time. I have plans later in the week, but up until then it’s just me, trying to distract myself. Hence the cookies and the books. But seeing you might make this week a little more bearable, I guess,” she replies, deciding at the last minute against the sigh she could throw in just for dramatics. 

It’s a low blow, she’ll admit it, but she’s not entirely against using her own loneliness as a punchline when it comes to Kara. 

Kara rolls her eyes, and the sight almost makes Lena laugh. “I keep wanting to remind you that you shouldn’t want this. You shouldn’t want to spend time with me. But I don’t know if I even have the energy to fight this anymore, Lena.” 

Kara’s words kill Lena’s laugh before it even reaches her throat. 

She swallows hard, the silence that had been so comforting before suddenly feeling charged and tense and a little suffocating. “You don’t have to,” Lena whispers, because she knows her voice will crack if she speaks any louder. 

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew me,” Kara replies, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Maybe you should tell me who you are before you make that judgment,” Lena argues, sounding braver than she feels. 

Kara doesn’t reply for a long time, she just stands in Lena’s living room, her eyes never leaving Lena’s, looking almost as though they’ve done this a million times and never all at the same time.

Lena’s tight grip on the counter is the only thing that keeps her from crossing the room and approaching Kara the way she so badly wants to, even now when Kara is looking at her with all her hard edges on display and her eyes tinged with insecurity. Lena can see Kara’s fingers digging into her biceps where her arms are crossed, can see them pressing hard into her skin. 

Lena’s own fingertips are white against the granite of her counter, her heart thudding hard inside her chest. 

Eventually, Kara breaks the eye contact and heads towards the door, opening it and letting herself out. Just before she leaves, she turns and meets Lena’s gaze again. She smiles, softly, and more warmly than Lena has seen so far. Warm enough that Lena blushes. 

“Thanks for the book, and for just—“ She trails off, gestures vaguely in the air before pushing her glasses up her nose. “I’ll see you around, Lena.” 

With that, she closes the door behind her and leaves. 

Lena pretends it’s entirely her imagination when she hears a loud rush of wind seconds later, right where Kara should have been standing.

It’s just easier that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know what you think!! i looooove reading and replying to your comments :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't even have an excuse for why it's been so long since i updated this, i'm just sorry for who i am as a person. i hope this chapter makes up for it!! thank you to all the people who haven't lost interest in this story and for encouraging me to keep writing (milly, i mostly mean you here. p.s you're my favourite)

Kara’s barely been gone for fifteen seconds before Lena is dialling Sam’s number. She doesn’t even check the time, and when she realises how late it is she feels guilty. Not guilty enough to end the call and try again tomorrow though, because in truth she’s suddenly having a really hard time processing the night’s events and she just needs her best friend to tell her to calm the fuck down. Lena starts to panic when Sam doesn't answer and starts mentally listing all the things she can clean to within an inch of their lives to distract herself, until there’s a click and Sam’s voice on the other end of the line. 

“Sam, I—“ is all Lena manages to say, her voice sounding strange and tight, before she hears Sam huff out a small laugh. 

“Calm the fuck down, Lena,” Sam interrupts. 

Despite herself, Lena laughs. Only after Lena has taken 3 deep breaths does Sam speak again. 

“Pour yourself a glass of wine and then tell me everything,” she instructs, and Lena almost has one of her moments where she starts crying just because she realises that people care about her. 

“Isn’t it like 3am where you are?” Lena asks, tapping her screen to activate the speakerphone and propping it up against the toaster as she reaches into her wine cooler for a bottle of her favourite red. 

“Aren’t you my best friend?” Sam responds without missing a beat.

Lena laughs. “Fair enough.” 

“What are you drinking?” 

“The Saint Emilion.” 

“Not the Chateau Latour?” 

“Christ, no. I’m not made of money,” Lena laughs. 

She hears Sam snort. “You pretty much are, Lena. Pop the bottle. I have a feeling you’re gonna need the ridiculous stuff tonight.” 

 

Sam listens with an attentiveness that still surprises Lena even after years of friendship, for almost two hours. While Lena talks, the words coming easier as she breaks into her second glass of wine, Sam rarely comments, only encourages her when Lena struggles. Lena starts at the beginning, with the stuff Sam already knows and works her way up to the night’s events. She doesn’t leave anything out this time, mostly because she doesn’t want to keep anything from her best friend, but partly because she wants Sam to tell her how insane she sounds, how literally batshit crazy she is. 

But Sam doesn’t. Sam, to her credit, doesn’t question Lena’s sanity at all. 

“I’m glad you opened the nine thousand dollar wine for that,” Sam says after a few moments of contemplative silence. “Because _wow_.” 

“You think I’m crazy.” 

“If I thought you were crazy, I’d tell you. You must know that by now.” 

“So if I’m not crazy, then how do I explain this?” 

“Do you want me to tell you that you’re crazy?” 

Lena laughs. “It would be easier than accepting that maybe the girl I have a crush on is from another planet.” 

“Wow, when you put it like that, maybe you _are_ crazy?” 

Lena curses at her, several times, to which Sam threatens to hang up and uninvite Lena from Christmas dinner. 

“That’s a low blow. How would I ever survive without your parsnips?” Lena exclaims, an amused smile on her face. 

“Is that the title of your sex tape?” 

“What does that even _mean_?!” Lena asks, bursting into laughter. 

Sam laughs too. “It’s gone four in the fucking morning, Lena. Your guess is as good as mine.” 

Amidst her laughter, Lena feels suddenly overcome with tiredness. She yawns and finishes the rest of her wine. “Seriously though, what am I supposed to do?” 

Sam is quiet for a few moments. “Do you like her?” 

Lena doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.” 

“Do you trust her? Like, do you trust that she won’t hurt you?” 

Lena thinks for a few seconds. She thinks about the times where she was afraid of Kara, and then she thinks about seeing Kara in her apartment, delicately turning over a book in her hands, and then she thinks about Kara blushing a light shade of pink at the mention of lesbian classics, and then she thinks about Kara gazing thoughtfully out of the window and somehow managing to get Lena to open up about her family, something Lena never does. 

Her heart clenches. “Yes.”

She hears Sam sigh. “Well then there you go.” 

“But I still don’t know what to _do_ ,” Lena argues. “I mean, what if she never tells me who— _what_ — she really is?” 

“Is that important to you?” 

Sam’s question catches Lena off guard. Because of course it is. Because she wants Kara to trust her with her secret, no matter what that secret is, because she doesn’t want Kara to have to carry it alone. But the more Lena thinks about it, she supposes that it’s not the subject matter of the secret that she cares about. And really, if Kara doesn’t want to tell her, Lena really has no right to ask, nor does she have a right to know. From what she knows about Kara so far, she doesn’t trust others with anything, and she spends almost all of her time alone. Maybe Lena should be thankful that Kara has found something in her that makes her feel like she can open up enough to spend time with her, to offer small pieces of information about her life, no matter how insignificant they might feel. Maybe it’s just enough for now that Kara feels like she can trust Lena with everything else. Maybe it’s just enough for now that Kara feels as though she can be with Lena, in Lena’s space, coexisting together even in the smallest way. Maybe it’s just enough for Lena to enjoy a friendship with Kara, and maybe it won’t hurt to just silently hope that one day, Kara will indeed share _everything_ with her. 

“Lena?” Sam’s soft voice cuts into Lena’s internal monologue. “Come back to me. What are you thinking about?” 

Lena laughs quietly, but her heart clenches at Sam’s voice because it’s the voice Sam always uses to bring Lena back to the present, when her mind is about to run away with her, and Lena is always so grateful. “Nothing. I just realised that knowing what Kara is really doesn’t actually bother me as much as I thought it would. I mean, obviously I’d love it if Kara felt as though she could tell me. But I don’t mind waiting and seeing what happens in the meantime.” 

“You really like her, don’t you?” 

“What makes you say that?” Lena asks, only to deflect, because suddenly she’s blushing and it isn’t completely due to the alcohol in her system. It’s mostly due to the fact that Sam is absolutely, one hundred percent, massively on the money with that question. 

“Lena Luthor, the omniscient, doesn’t want to know. That says everything,” Sam chuckles. 

Lena blushes harder and says goodnight, tells Sam she loves her, hangs up and then heads over to the kitchen to rinse her glass in the sink. As she watches the red droplets in the bottom run clear, she thinks about Kara. She concludes that she hasn’t smiled this much in a really long time and doesn’t even flinch when her brain tries to kill the mood by reminding her of all the ways this could go south. She just shuts off the faucet with a little more venom than it deserves and tells her brain to kindly fuck off. 

She’s straightening the couch cushions before she heads to bed, thinking about all the books she wants to buy for Kara when she spots a small piece of paper tucked into the cover of one of the hardbacks on her coffee table.

Sitting down on the edge of the couch, she pulls the paper free and turns it over in her hand. Lena’s face breaks out into a smile (yes, another) when she recognises Kara’s penmanship and her smile only grows as she reads the note. 

_I lied when I said I didn’t know why I came over. I actually came over to give you this._

_Kara_

Underneath the note is a phone number. 

 

Lena waits until she’s tucked herself into bed before she messages Kara. She types and deletes and retypes a message several times before she sighs and tells herself to stop being so ridiculous. She doesn’t know why she’s so nervous to send a text message. She feels ridiculous, because it’s just Kara. 

_Beautiful, mysterious, fascinating, gorgeous, Kara_ her brain reminds her. Lena tells it once again to fuck off. 

**I found this number tucked suspiciously into the cover of one of my books. May I ask who this is?**

She considers adding an emoji, but she doesn’t want to look thirsty so at the last second, she decides against it. Almost instantly, she grins as the three dots appear to indicate that Kara is typing a response. 

_Which book? You’re going to have to be more specific than that, I’m afraid._

Lena frowns. 

**Why? Do you think more than one person is leaving their number tucked into my books?**

_Just check the book, Lena. Read it. And then decide whether or not you want to come back to this._

Lena half jumps out of bed and practically runs into the living room. She picks up the book from the couch where she’d thrown it in her haste to message Kara. It’s a copy of The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh and surprisingly, it’s the only book on the pile that Lena has actually read. 

Her body prickles with goosebumps as she recalls the story inside her head. 

“A dystopian beauty and the beast,” she summarises aloud. 

It’s not the whole concept of the story, in fact the story is actually more of a retelling of One Thousand and One Nights, but it’s definitely a huge part of it. Is Kara trying to tell Lena that she’s the beast? 

Lena is suddenly overcome with an overwhelming urge to hold Kara. The only thing that stops her is the fact that she doesn’t actually know where Kara lives. So Lena does the next best thing. 

Heading back into her bedroom, the book cradled into her chest as though Kara is part of it somehow, Lena taps the phone icon beside Kara’s name and calls. 

She tries three times, and each time she’s met with Kara’s voicemail greeting. She hasn’t even set a personal one up, it’s just an automated voice from her phone provider telling callers to leave a message after the beep. On the fourth time, Lena lets the voicemail connect. She tells Kara to meet her at the park at 10am the following day, and then she tells her to have sweet dreams. 

Lena falls asleep relatively quickly after that, which will surprise her the following morning. It doesn’t surprise her however, when she dreams about Kara. 

 

Lena doesn’t hold her breath as she waits for Kara the next morning. She sits on a bench and works, composing emails and reading over proposals until her fingers are too cold to continue, after which she slips her phone into her pocket and then tucks her hands up into her coat sleeves to warm again. By 10:25, Lena’s freezing cold from head to toe and completely ready to accept that Kara isn’t coming if it means she can power walk straight to her favourite coffee shop for an extra large, extra hot gingerbread latte. 

“Why do I feel like I can trust you, Lena?” 

Kara’s voice takes Lena by surprise and she visibly jumps before blushing, embarrassed, and looking over at Kara who seems to have just magically appeared next to her. Lena doesn’t question how she missed her approaching, because for all she knows Kara really did just _appear_ and she reminds herself of her decision yesterday, that all of that doesn’t matter right now. 

But when Lena meets Kara’s beautiful, blue gaze, she finds hard eyes full of uncertainty and indifference.

“Because you can,” Lena says, smiling even though Kara’s disposition makes her a little nervous.

Kara doesn’t smile back. She regards Lena with an unreadable expression, one Lena has seen many times before even in the short while they’ve known each other, one that makes her skin prickle with acute awareness. 

Lena uses the moment to regard Kara herself. 

Her hair is down again today, long, loose waves blowing in the bitter breeze, but like before, Kara doesn’t seem to notice the cold. Her thin blue sweater and lightweight jacket, unzipped and offering little to no warmth, seem completely out of place in the below freezing temperatures. While Lena herself is wearing four thick layers and still shivering, Kara seems perfectly content out in the morning air. Her skin is glowing and radiant, not even the faintest sign of chill at her cheeks and nose, and her hands are bare of gloves, one tucked casually into her jeans pocket and the other hanging down by her side, holding onto the book she borrowed from Lena last night.

“Did you read it already?” Lena asks, breaking the silence and acknowledging the object in Kara’s hand. 

Kara blinks hard and looks a little startled, almost as though she hadn’t realised how long the silence had become. Her gaze leaves Lena’s and glances at the book in her hand. She shrugs. “I told you. I’m a quick reader.” 

Kara hands the book back to Lena, and then shoves her hand into her other pocket. 

“Well, consider me impressed,” Lena smiles, determined not to let Kara’s brisk responses put her off, tucking the book under her arm. “What did you think?” 

Kara shrugs again. “It was okay. Beautiful, but not exactly a light, uplifting read for a winter night, if that’s what you’re looking for. It’s really fucking depressing, actually.”

Lena chuckles. “I’ll bear that in mind. You can borrow another book if you like?” 

Kara looks as though she’s about to decline Lena’s offer, before she crosses her arms over her chest and says, “Sure. Thanks.” 

Lena almost mentions the book Kara left her note in, but decides to save it for another time, when she’s more sure of Kara’s mood and can guarantee that Kara won’t run for the hills if she brings it up. 

“Did you wanna go look for another book now? Or do you wanna grab a coffee? I don’t know if you even feel the cold but I’m fucking freezing.” 

She means it to sound like a figure of speech, similar to the ones people throw at her every summer when she refuses to wear anything other than jeans even on the hottest days, along the lines of “ _are you cold blooded or something?_ ”, but Kara’s reaction makes Lena wonder if maybe her figure of speech isn’t far off the mark. 

She doesn’t even speak, but Lena watches all her defences go up, her eyes cold, her mouth a hard line, her grip on her bicep where her arms are crossed tightening. 

Lena hurries to backtrack. “Wait, Kara, I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant that—“ 

“It’s fine,” Kara interrupts. “I should probably go.” 

“Kara, please, I honestly didn’t mean for that to sound the way it did. I’m just— I’m really fucking cold and I would really love to get a coffee with you.” 

Kara stares at Lena for a few long seconds before she relaxes a little. “Okay. Coffee is good.” 

Lena smiles and then _she_ relaxes too. “Cool.” 

 

They walk most of the way to the coffee shop in silence, and Lena keeps her hands tucked into her pockets out of fear that she’ll do something really stupid, like maybe reach for Kara’s hand. The silence is comfortable, peaceful, contemplative, and Lena finds that she really enjoys the quiet moments between them. She’s never been one for idle chit-chat, and there are very few people whom she actually enjoys conversation with anyway. It’s one of the only things Lena thinks Lillian ever got right about her, actually. 

Lillian always told Lena not to bother making friends, because very few people could meet her level of intellect, and that conversing with them was a waste of her time. And while Lena wouldn’t necessarily use those exact words, nor would she say that talking to others is a waste of time, she does agree that Lena’s idea of a pleasant conversation is not one many people would be able to keep up with, and there’s really nothing shameful about that, about admitting that she’s an intelligent woman who generally needs _more_. That’s not to say that Lena doesn’t enjoy a little gossip sometimes, because she and Sam share plenty of that.

Lena hopes that one day she and Kara will be able to enjoy that too. That amongst the hundreds and thousands of enlightening conversations she just knows already she can have with Kara. Lena gets the feeling that Kara might even be smarter than she is, and for once in her life, she finds she isn’t threatened by that in the slightest.

Lillian would turn in her grave if she knew, Lena thinks, and then she chuckles softly to herself. 

“Something funny?” Kara asks, looking quizzically over at Lena. 

“Not really,” Lena replies, not even questioning this time how Kara heard such a soft laugh over the sound of the passing traffic. “I was actually just thinking about my mother.” 

Kara frowns. “You don’t seem like the kind of person who often laughs when they think about their mother.” 

Lena laughs properly then, a short, loud laugh. “That’s awfully perceptive of you, Kara.” 

“I’m always trying to figure you out,” Kara shrugs, and then she turns back to face the street in front of her. 

Lena hates herself for how she almost chokes on her tongue at the sight of Kara’s jawline from this angle, and then she mentally tells herself to chill the fuck out as she digs her fingernails into her palms inside her coat pockets. 

They walk in silence again for a few minutes before Kara asks, “When you talk about Lillian, you refer to her as your mother. But she isn’t your _real_ mom, right? I mean, you said you were adopted, and if you never actually _liked_ Lillian, I guess I’m just wondering why you still refer to her as your mom.” 

Lena swallows hard at Kara’s question, knocked off guard by how casually she asks, as though she’s just wondering out loud. When Lena doesn’t answer immediately, Kara glances over at her. “You don’t have to answer that, I’m sorry. Forget I asked.” 

Lena smiles. “No, it’s okay. I just forgot how attentive you are.” 

Kara smiles back, a small, unsure smile, but a smile all the same, and then she looks away again. 

“I don’t remember my birth mom. Well, I do, but in very small fragments. I was so young when she died, so I don’t have all that much to remember her by, just childish glimpses of memories. And then, a year after the Luthors adopted me, Lillian and Lionel divorced, and I never really saw much of him after that. So Lillian raised me, and even though one might argue that she didn’t exactly do the best job, she’s my mom. She’s pretty much the only mother I’ve actually ever known,” Lena pauses then, suddenly overcome with emotions she hasn’t experienced in a long time. 

She looks down at the pavement as she walks, trying to gather her thoughts again, but she feels Kara watching her. 

“Lena, I— I’m sorry for bringing this up,” Kara says, quietly. 

Lena looks back at her and smiles. “It’s fine, honestly. I’m just not used to talking about it, that’s all.” 

“The first time you ever mentioned your family, you just seemed so detached. You talked about your brother trying to kill you as though it was nothing. And I was fascinated by that.” 

Lena laughs then, Kara’s words for some reason absolutely tickling her. Kara frowns at Lena’s reaction, a questioning look in her eyes. 

“Of all the things you could have been charmed by, my emotional detachment just had to be it!” 

Kara stares at Lena as she laughs, and then she lets out a little chuckle herself. “What the fuck is wrong with us?” She asks, grinning softly. 

Lena just laughs harder and thinks about how if there were ever a perfect moment to take Kara’s hand, this would be it. 

She doesn’t actually do it, but she thinks about it. 

“If ever you figure that one out, please let me know,” Lena says, once she finally stops laughing. 

Kara chuckles, and Lena sees that all of her hard features have been lost somewhere in her laugh, and she’s pretty sure Kara has never looked more breathtaking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know what you think!!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry again for the long pause between updates pls just accept that who i am as a person is the worst and lower your expectations of me :)

“I wasn’t gonna come today. That’s why I was late,” Kara says suddenly, stirring a spoon around her latte. 

They’re sitting at a table by the window, droplets of condensation covering it due to the freezing temperature outside and the warmth inside the coffee shop. Time always seems to work a little differently around this time of year, the last couple of weeks of December all blurring into one long stretch of days out of the normal routine of life, and it’s something that definitely unsettles Lena whenever she lets herself think about it, and considering she and Kara have spent the last half an hour in a contemplative silence, Lena would be lying if she said her mind hadn’t started to run away with her a little. She’s barely touched her latte, knowing the caffeine won’t help the growing anxiety in the pit of her stomach, and so she’s thankful when Kara finally speaks and gives her something else to focus on that isn’t the inner workings of her brain.

Leaning over, Lena reaches for a sugar cube and drops it into her coffee, deciding that she’ll let herself indulge in the sweetness for once. She stifles a smile when she sees Kara watching her, then watches her do the same with her own sugar cube. 

“Well, I’m glad you decided to come after all,” Lena replies, taking a small sip of her americano.

Kara’s eyes flick up to Lena’s, her gaze thoughtful. There’s a long pause before her shoulders relax and she smiles. “Me too.” 

Lena’s thankful it’s so warm inside because she can blame the heat on the soft blush that gently covers her cheeks at Kara’s words. 

A silence returns around them and Kara turns her head to look out of the window, wrapping her fingers around her coffee mug, leaning back in her chair and tucking one leg underneath her. She looks so comfortable, so relaxed, and it’s not a look Lena has seen on Kara before now, but it’s one she appreciates entirely. Lena watches her, perfectly content to gaze over at Kara like this for the rest of the day, and rather than fretting over all the things she could be doing, all the things she could be working on right now, for the first time in what feels like forever, Lena decides to just let herself be. 

She isn’t sure how long they sit there exactly like that, but it’s long enough for both of their cups to empty, long enough that the chill of the morning feels like a distant memory. It takes several seconds for Lena to realise that Kara has stopped looking out of the window at some point and is instead watching her. 

Lena smiles shyly when she’s caught staring, and a flicker of amusement appears in Kara’s eyes before her expression turns somewhat serious again. 

“I hate it when you look at me like that,” Kara says, a frown forming on her lips. 

“Like what?” 

“Just like _that_. I can’t read your mind or anything, but I know that whatever you’re thinking about me, you’re probably wrong and you shouldn’t be thinking it.” 

Lena laughs. “What am I thinking?” 

“I told you I can’t read your mind, Lena.” 

“Well, obviously. But I’d like to hear what you think I’m thinking,” Lena says, not missing the way her brain reminds her that when it comes to Kara, it really _isn’t_ obvious that she can’t read her mind, but if Kara says she can’t, then Lena believes her. 

Kara’s gaze turns thoughtful then, and Lena watches as she seems to visibly shrink inside of herself, and suddenly Lena’s not sure she really wants to hear what Kara is thinking after all. Her eyes are full of caution, her arms crossed protectively over her body, and already Lena misses the moments not too long ago when Kara had seemed free of most of the tension she always carries with her. She hates that Kara’s burden is so heavy, hates that she can almost physically see the weight of it all whenever she looks at her, and Lena aches inside at the thought of possibly never being able to ease it for her. 

“You look at me like I’m never going to hurt you, like I never could,” Kara says, quietly, meeting her eyes. 

Lena shivers, the intensity of Kara’s gaze chilling her a little. “And I’m wrong to think that?” 

Kara hesitates for a few long seconds before she shrugs. “I might. I have hurt people before.” 

Lena waits before she responds. She doesn’t know if Kara means emotionally or physically, and she tries to tell herself that she isn’t too afraid to ask. “I’m sure we’ve all hurt people before, Kara. It’s just a part of being—“ 

She’s about to say human. _It’s just a part of being human_. But she stops herself. 

“It’s just a part of being who we are,” Lena finishes, nervously running her tongue over her bottom lip, anticipating whether or not Kara noticed her almost slip-up. 

Kara doesn’t react, she just continues to look at Lena with a heavy gaze, but something in Lena tells her that Kara knows exactly what she was going to say. Lena meets her gaze, knowing fine well she couldn’t look away even if she wanted to. 

Eventually, Kara sighs and unfolds her arms, resting her hands in her lap instead. “Are you like this with everyone?” She asks. 

“What do you mean?” Lena replies, her heart skipping a little as some of the tension between them begins to evaporate. 

“I’ve been nothing but a bitch to you since we met and yet you keep giving me the benefit of the doubt, keep trying to tell me that I’m better than I think I am. It’s far more than I deserve and I just can’t help but wonder if this is just who you are.” 

Lena smiles, touched by Kara’s words. 

“Believe it or not, Kara, I used to be a bitch too. But then I started reminding myself of my mother, and I changed my attitude pretty quickly,” Lena laughs. 

Kara smiles, somewhat sadly. Lena picks up on it straight away, and suddenly the urge to hold Kara’s hand is back. Instead, Lena runs a hand through her hair and smiles, softly. “Are you alright?” 

Kara nods, too quickly and forcefully for it to be genuine, but Lena pretends she doesn’t notice because she knows Kara will appreciate it. She continues talking, giving Kara some space where the attention isn’t directly on her. 

“It turns out that once you start reminding yourself of Lillian Luthor, changing from a cold hearted bitch into someone a little softer around the edges is easier than you might think,” Lena says, reflectively. “And in all seriousness, there’s only so many people I could lose before I realised that being a bitch didn’t get me anywhere except alone every single night, numbing my brain with numbers and formula and equations until I eventually passed out at my desk. It turns out that while doing that is great for getting ahead in my career, it isn’t exactly great for my sanity. And I refuse to be just another Luthor who goes insane.” 

When Lena looks up from the table where she’d been absentmindedly staring as she talked, she finds Kara watching her intently. Her gaze is softer now though, and it’s the kind of look that makes Lena want to stare into her eyes forever. 

“Can I admit something?” Kara asks. 

Lena smiles and nods. “Of course.” 

Kara smiles back before she looks down, breaking their gaze. “When you told me last night what happened with your brother, I couldn’t stop thinking about it when I got home. So I googled you.” 

Lena chuckles then, and delights in the soft blush that crosses Kara’s cheeks as she does. “Oh, god…” Lena laughs. 

“I didn’t mean to pry or anything, I just got curious. I’m sorry,” Kara says, sounding almost ashamed. 

“Hey, it’s fine, honestly. I don’t mind,” Lena offers, smiling. 

Kara smiles back but she doesn’t look entirely convinced that Lena is telling the truth. “I won’t do it again, I promise. I just— The story you told me was so sad, and I couldn’t really believe that that was all there is to it. I thought about it for so long, trying to figure out how something like that could happen to someone like you, and then suddenly I was googling you. And I know that sounds bad, I know it sounds fucking creepy actually, but I just want you to know that after everything I read, after everything you told me, I don’t think you’re like your brother. I know just from knowing you for a short space of time that you probably worry about that, about ending up like him. But I don’t think you have it in you. You’re too good, Lena.” 

Two unspoken words hang in the air. For me. _You’re too good for me_.

Kara doesn’t look up, she just continues staring at her lap, and for maybe the first time, Lena is glad that Kara doesn’t meet her eyes. 

“Did you read anything else?” Lena asks, quietly, after a little time has passed. “Did you read anything about before Lillian died?” 

Kara shakes her head. “I told you, I felt bad even reading what I read. So no, I didn’t read anything else.” 

“Lex wasn’t always bad.” 

“I know, you told me.” 

“He was the only person who made me feel like I belonged somewhere, for almost all of my life. No matter how unbearable Lillian was, Lex made it better.” 

Kara looks up then, meeting Lena’s eyes. “You must miss him.” 

Lena laughs, the only thing she can do as she finds herself suddenly a little choked up. She runs a hand through her hair again, just for something to do. “I do. I miss the old him. But what I’m trying to say is that I don’t mind if people think I’m like Lex, because so much of Lex was so good, unfathomably good. People overlook all of that now, and I don’t blame them, but it doesn’t change the fact that he was my best friend. I mean, I was nothing but a stranger in his home but from day one, he treated me like a sister. I can’t tell you how many nights I cried myself to sleep in the beginning, but Lex was there every time. Lillian would yell at me, tell me to stop being so silly, to start acting less like a baby and more like a Luthor, whatever that meant, but Lex was never like that. Lex just held my hand and read me stories and let me grieve in my own childish way. I’m not sure that I would’ve coped, losing my parents and then having to live with Lillian, if it wasn’t for him,” Lena smiles, nostalgically, goosebumps appearing on her skin as she recalls fond memories of her brother that she doesn’t often allow herself to think about anymore. 

Kara smiles, her eyes soft. “He sounds like he was a great brother.”

Lena smiles back. “He was. He was the one who wanted a sister in the first place, you know? And when we were a little older, he would apologise all the time for the way Lillian treated me. He thought that maybe if he hadn’t asked for a sister, maybe I would’ve been adopted by a real family. But I always told him he was my real family, that he was the closest thing to family I’d felt since the day my parents died. I wasn’t lying.”

Kara smiles, softly and sadly again. “Have you ever visited him?” 

“Once. It was maybe 6 months after he was detained. I haven’t been back since then,” Lena shrugs, her tone and body language successfully ending the conversation.

If Kara has questions about that, she doesn’t ask them and Lena’s grateful because talking about Lex in general is hard, but talking about the one and only time she’s seen him since the day he tried to kill her is impossible. It’s not something Lena can even think about without triggering herself into some sort of panic. 

“Can I ask you about your sister?” Lena says, quickly trying to change the subject.

She knows she’s taking a risk, because every time Kara’s family has been mentioned before, Kara’s reaction hasn’t exactly been ideal. But Lena feels like they’ve made progress today, and Kara has smiled more and shared more and so she asks anyway. 

Kara visibly tenses at Lena’s words, curling her hands into tight fists and slipping them back under the table out of sight. 

“We don’t have to,” Lena backtracks, quickly. “If it makes you uncomfortable we don’t have to talk about her.” 

But Kara shakes her head, holds up a single finger, gesturing for Lena to wait, and then she takes a deep breath. On her exhale, her cheeks pinken slightly. 

“Sorry,” Kara says, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I’m just not used to people knowing anything about me. Sometimes it still takes me by surprise and all my defences go up.” 

Lena smiles, and fights back the urge again to ask for Kara’s hand. “It’s okay,” she says. “I get it.” 

Kara nods. “I know you do. That’s why I’m trying to be different with you.” 

Lena tries to ignore the way her stomach flutters at Kara’s words, tries to pretend she can’t feel her eyes beginning to water when she thinks about just how much Kara is willing to try for her. 

“There was a lot of darkness before I came here, Lena. For a long time,” Kara begins, and Lena gets the feeling that she’s choosing her words very carefully, that every word is a very conscious decision, almost as though she’s trying to tell Lena everything without actually telling her anything. 

Lena listens twice as hard after that, giving Kara absolutely every ounce of her attention, because that’s what Kara deserves, always. 

“I’m still trying to get away from that darkness even now. There isn’t much that helps me do that, but Alex— Alex helps. I never told her that she helped, but she does. She makes being here easier. When I first came here, I’d just lost everyone I loved and then suddenly I was surrounded by strangers speaking a foreign language with all these foreign ideals and expectations that I didn’t really understand. Alex helped me adapt a little. She didn’t treat me like an alien, which is what I felt like.” Kara pauses then, and swallows hard. Lena follows the movement of her throat with her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything. “She was fiercely protective of me. She still is, as you know. But I don’t deserve that anymore. I hurt her. I hurt her really bad. So now I can’t see her anymore,” Kara says, her head dropping again to stare at her lap. 

Kara’s quiet then for a long time. Lena doesn’t speak either, she just gives Kara some space, waits a little while before asking a passing waiter if he can bring over two more coffees, the same as they had before. She waits until two fresh cups are sitting on the table in front of them before she says anything. 

“I know it’s not my place to say, Kara, but when I met Alex, it seemed like she still cares about you a lot,” Lena says, quietly. 

Kara shrugs. “She does. She does care about me a lot.” 

“So maybe she’s forgiven you, for whatever it is that you did to hurt her?” 

Kara looks up, something not dissimilar to anger flaring up in her eyes then. But it passes, quicker than Lena has seen one of Kara’s emotions pass. “I don’t think so.” 

Lena takes a long sip of her coffee, letting Kara gather her thoughts on her own again. 

“She sends me books, did I tell you that?” Kara says, after a minute or so. 

Lena nods. “You mentioned that Alex gave you books to read.” 

Kara smiles. “Alex likes reading too. And whenever she reads a book that she thinks I’ll enjoy, she sends it to me. Sometimes she sends multiple books at once, sometimes just one. She always leaves little notes inside for me. Not long ones, just a paragraph or two telling me what she’s been up to, how her mom— I’m still trying to work on how I feel about her technically being my mom too now, I guess— is doing, anywhere she and her girlfriend have been that she thinks I’d be interested in. And I think I look forward to those notes more than I look forward to the books themselves.” 

Lena’s heart flutters as Kara talks, warmth and affection spreading through her as she think about Alex’s gesture and suddenly a question is on her lips. “You were the one who asked Alex to stay away from you, weren’t you?” 

Kara nods. “It’s better for her if she does. It’s better for you too, but you don’t seem to take no for an answer.” 

Lena chuckles, but then her gaze turns serious. “Nothing bad has happened between us, Kara. Maybe you’re not the same person you were when you hurt Alex.” 

“Nothing bad has happened _yet_ ,” Kara snaps, her jaw suddenly clenched. 

Lena leans back just to give Kara some space. “I don’t think you’ll hurt Alex again,” she says, quietly. 

Kara laughs, but it lacks humour and it sounds wrong and Lena just wishes she could take back everything she said that unintentionally made Kara mad. “Have you ever been afraid of me, Lena?” Kara asks, ice in her tone.

“Yes,” Lena admits, seeing no point in lying. “But that was before! That was before I knew you. That was before I knew how perceptive and trustworthy and attentive you are. That was before I knew I could tell you anything without being judged, without feeling like I’m not being heard. That was before I knew even a glimpse of what you’ve been through, what you fight to overcome everyday. That was before I knew the colour of your cheeks when you blush, the softness in your eyes, the way you play with your glasses when you’re feeling awkward, the way you—“ 

“Lena, don’t. Please,” Kara interrupts, and something in the way she says her name makes Lena quieten. 

There’s another silence between them, but this one is heavier than all the others, and Lena watches Kara’s shoulders rise and fall with her breathing, her eyes focused intently on her coffee mug, blinking slowly and deliberately every few seconds.

Lena waits. The rest of the coffee shop chatter continues in the background, soft, soulful jazz playing over the speakers, the grinding of the barista machine intermittently beginning and ending. She sips at her coffee and tries not to stare too hard at Kara, tries not to ask any questions or make any movements. 

“Do you want me to go?” Lena asks, eventually, when the silence becomes too heavy. 

The relief that floods her body when Kara shakes her head slowly doesn’t surprise Lena in the slightest. 

“I want you to want to go,” Kara says. “Because I know that leaving notes in books for you is never going to be enough for me. And that terrifies me.” 

Lena smiles, her heart skipping. “It doesn’t terrify me.” 

“It should.” 

Chuckling softly, Lena takes another sip of her coffee. “Well, it doesn’t. So I guess it just sucks to be you.” 

Kara stares at her for a few long seconds, before a hint of a grin pulls at her lips. “You don’t make any sense, Lena.” 

“You’re not exactly rocket science yourself,” Lena laughs. 

Kara frowns, her eyebrows narrowing into a questioning look, because to most people, that’s the wrong use of the phrase. Lena rolls her eyes. 

“I’m good a rocket science,” she says by way of explanation, shrugging nonchalantly. 

Kara laughs then, and it’s a heavenly sound. “Of course you are.” 

“You don’t have to act humble, Kara. I know you’re good at it too,” Lena grins. 

Kara smiles, her eyes meeting Lena’s again, Lena’s insides fluttering just like the first time. “You know, before I met you I really hadn’t talked to anyone in a long time.” 

Kara’s admission takes Lena by surprise and her heart clenches as she thinks about Kara being alone. “Did I ever tell you that I’m really sorry for refusing to leave you alone in that bar? That was totally unfair of me. I mean, you were sending out pretty clear signals that you wanted to be left alone and I didn’t respect any of them.” 

Kara shrugs off Lena’s apology and takes a drink of her latte. “I’m glad you persisted,” she smiles, pushing her glasses up her nose. “For totally selfish reasons.” 

“Like what?” Lena asks, smiling. 

Kara gestures between the two of them with her hand. “Like this,” she replies, simply. “This is nice.” 

Lena’s smile grows. “It is,” she agrees. 

There’s a small pause before Kara speaks again, almost as if she’s fighting with herself on whether or not to say anything else. When she eventually speaks, Lena’s sure she’s never been more grateful for anything. 

“Lena, what I told you earlier, about Alex helping me get away from the darkness… you do that too,” Kara says, softly. 

Lena doesn’t know what to say, and she knows that if she opens her mouth and tries to say something, she’ll probably just cry anyway. So instead she simply smiles even more. 

“That doesn’t mean I don’t wish you’d realise what a huge mistake you’re making, being around me,” Kara insists, dipping a spoon into her mostly empty latte glass to scoop out some of the milky foam in the bottom. 

Lena’s heart does an embarrassing flutter as she watches her, totally endeared. “So you keep saying,” she smiles, entirely too tickled to even entertain the thought that the woman sitting in front of her right now licking foam from her spoon could ever hurt anyone. 

“I mean it, Lena.” 

Lena chuckles. “Mhmm.” 

Kara looks up and glares at her then, but there isn’t any real intent behind it. Comfortable silence falls over them once again until a couple of minutes later, Kara breaks it. 

“So,” she begins. “Rocket science…” 

Laughing, Lena orders yet another two drinks for them and settles in for what she’s sure is going to be a wonderful afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know what you think!! i love reading and replying to comments and every single one means so much to me <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no your eyes are not deceiving you, i really am posting another chapter less than a week after i posted the last one. i don't recognise myself either... 
> 
> i hope you enjoy this!! i had the best time writing it

The rest of the day passes quickly, not that Lena notices. 

She and Kara talk about the ways of the universe, about philosophy and statistics, about Lena’s company and about books, but they also enjoy reflective and comfortable silences, and all the while the waiter keeps their drinks coming, their coffee cups full. 

As much as Lena enjoys talking with Kara, more than anything she just enjoys listening. Kara is incredibly smart, almost unbelievably so and Lena is so captivated by her intelligence, intelligence that Kara seems more and more willing to share with Lena the longer they talk, that she almost feels disappointed when Kara asks her a direct question and she herself has to speak. The more Kara talks, the more Lena learns that this will always be a safe place for her; science, mathematics and quantum mechanics doesn’t make Kara uncomfortable, doesn’t make Kara nervous or awkward, doesn’t make Kara hide inside herself at all. The vastness of Kara’s knowledge makes Lena wonder infinitely about what Kara’s life was like before she came here, makes her hope that wherever Kara came from, she had people who were just like her with whom she could talk freely to without constantly having to explain herself, people who could keep up with her. 

Lena’s in the middle of one of her internal monologues, keeping half her attention on what Kara is saying which just so happens to be something fascinating about quantum entanglement, when the waiter approaches their table. 

Lena looks up at him and Kara stops talking as she does, and when Kara casts a very clearly annoyed glance in his direction at having been interrupted, Lena has to stifle a laugh. 

“Sorry to disturb you, ladies, but we’re gonna be closing up soon and I just wanted to check if there’s anything else you’d like to order before I cash up your tab,” the waiter smiles, mostly to Lena more than Kara. 

Lena raises her eyebrows in question to Kara who in turn just shakes her head, and the waiter heads off to the register to total up their bill. 

“They let you open up tabs in this place?” She asks, clearly surprised. 

Lena chuckles. “Not everyone.” 

“Right. Just you?” Kara laughs. 

“As far as I know. Considering that the first one of these coffee shops before they turned into a chain was one I opened up in my hospital, I guess they know I’m not gonna just leave without paying.” 

“So you technically own this place?” 

“I guess so. Not that I know anything at all about the coffee industry besides the fact that I wouldn't survive without it.” 

Kara regards her with a long, curious look. When Lena questions it, Kara just rolls her eyes. “Are there any other buildings or businesses in National City that you just so happen to technically own?” She asks. 

Lena laughs as she stands from her seat, slipping her arms into the sleeves of her coat and reaching for her purse. “A few,” she throws nonchalantly over her shoulder, heading towards the counter to pay. 

After a very brief argument over who’s paying for their coffee, a very brief argument which Lena wins and Kara sulks over for a couple of minutes, they exit the coffee shop, Lena offering a warm and thankful smile to the waiter who follows them to the door to lock it behind them as they leave. 

Stepping back outside again after being cosy and warm for several hours is more than a shock to Lena’s system, the cold wind biting into her hands and face no matter how tightly she pulls her coat and scarf around herself. Despite the cold though, Lena makes no effort to move anywhere yet because she’s in no rush to leave Kara and she’s pretty sure she’d stand here shivering all night if it meant that they could continue their conversation the way they had been inside. 

Lena glances over at Kara to find her already watching her, but when Lena smiles, Kara doesn’t smile back. Leaving the warmth and safety of the coffee shop seems to have affected Kara too and some of the softness that had been there for almost all of the afternoon has disappeared from her eyes, replaced by the hardness that Lena recognises all too well. She looks relaxed enough, standing in the doorway with her hands tucked into her pockets, but there’s something different about her now, and had Lena not just spent the entire day with her, she probably wouldn’t have noticed it. 

Lena looks away again, casts her eyes to the street in front of her, suddenly realising for the first time how late it’s become, the orange glow from the streetlights cutting through the darkness of the winter night that has somehow approached them without being seen. For a small moment, Lena consideres how strange it is that time seems to always so easily pass her by when she’s with Kara. Being a woman of meticulous planning and productivity, time is something that rarely ever escapes her grasp, but after the minor panic of all the things she could have done in the time she’s spent with Kara today passes over her, Lena just lets her heart flutter and herself delight in whatever it is about Kara that makes her not want to be anywhere else. A small smile graces her lips at the thought. 

“Do you wanna get dinner or something?” Kara suddenly asks. “I mean, I feel bad that we just had so much coffee and you haven’t eaten in hours. I probably should have noticed sooner that you never ate lunch, but I guess I just lost track of time. And you paid for the coffees, which means I owe you, I think.” 

Lena laughs softly; she’d stopped trying to pretend her hands weren’t shaking from the caffeine around her third cup and she’d be lying if she said her heart wasn’t racing a little faster than usual. “Sure, we can get dinner if you want?” Lena smiles, and then she quickly worries that she sounds uninterested and hurries to backtrack. “I mean, yes, I’d love to get dinner with you, Kara.” 

Kara tucks her hands further into her pockets. “We don’t have to, I get it if you’re sick of being around me by now. I know I talked a lot today and probably gave you a headache.” 

Lena crosses her arms over her chest, partly to try to warm herself a little but mostly just because the urge to reach out and touch Kara, to lay a hand on her arm in reassurance is almost too much to bear and she knows that if she leaves her hands hanging loosely by her sides any longer, she won’t be able to fight it. “Kara,” she says, softly. “My head is fine. I had a great afternoon with you and would love to get dinner so that we can talk some more, please.” 

Kara doesn’t look entirely convinced, but for what feels like the first time she doesn’t flare up in anger at Lena’s gentle, affectionate words. She just shrugs, a hint of a smile on her lips. “Cool.” 

 

Lena lets Kara pick where they should eat and resolutely, dinner ends up being in a small, quaint Chinese restaurant, tucked away in a corner of the city Lena has rarely ever visited before. 

“This place is my favourite,” Kara supplies as they find a table and sit down. “But I’m sorry it’s probably not as nice as you’re used to,” she adds, looking down and playing with the napkin at the edge of the table. 

“If you say this place is great then I trust your judgement,” Lena says, dismissing her apology. “And besides, Chinese food just so happens to be my favourite takeout.” 

Kara narrows her brows at that, and laughs quietly to herself. Feeling mildly self conscious, as though there’s a joke there that Lena isn’t quite getting, Lena questions her as she picks up the menu. “What’s funny?” 

Kara shakes her head and smiles at Lena. “You were making quinoa cookies this time yesterday, that’s all.” 

“And?”

“ _Quinoa cookies_ , Lena. Forgive me for thinking it’s a disgrace to put those two words together, and for thinking that people who do and actually enjoy it, don’t also enjoy greasy takeouts like the rest of us,” Kara teases.

Lena’s too taken aback by how nice it is to see Kara smiling and teasing her lightly as though they’re old friends that she almost forgets to be offended. 

“Hey, quinoa cookies are delicious. You shouldn’t make fun of them until you’ve tried them,” Lena laughs. “But you know what’s also delicious? Potstickers, fried tofu, crispy seaweed and noodles.” 

Kara smiles. “Is that your order?” 

“Yes. With extra sweet and sour sauce,” Lena smiles back. 

 

Dinner passes by mostly in silence, besides Kara asking Lena multiple times if her food is okay despite Lena telling her repeatedly that it’s delicious. Kara barely touches her food, and she instead just pushes it around on her plate whilst occasionally taking little bites. Lena doesn’t comment, just watches Kara out of the corner of her eye and tries not to worry too much. 

“Can I ask you something?” Kara suddenly asks, after around fifteen minutes of comfortable silence. 

Lena smiles. “Of course. Always.” 

Kara puts down her fork and rests her elbow on the table, leaning her head on her hand. “Do you ever just get really angry?” she asks, her gaze deep and searching into Lena’s. 

Chuckling, Lena takes a sip of her drink. “Why do you ask?” 

Kara shrugs. “I don’t know, I just— You’ve seen me angry, multiple times since we met. But I’ve yet to see it in you. You’re always so calm and in control of your emotions.” 

“Ah, my emotional detachment strikes again.” 

A light blush crosses Kara’s cheeks then, and she shakes her head. “It’s not that, really. There’s a difference between you talking about your brother trying to murder you as though it’s nothing, and you sitting there in front of me with all of your emotions under a carefully tightened leash.” 

Lena smiles again, softly, Kara’s bluntness that she finds so refreshing making her feel warm inside, once again slightly taken aback by Kara’s perceptiveness. She wonders if there’s anything Kara doesn’t notice. “I do get angry, Kara. Trust me.” 

Kara quirks a brow. “What kind of things do you get angry about?” 

“That’s an incredibly vague question. Do you want the god-honest truth or a lightened version of it?” 

“Lena, you should know enough about me by now to know that I always want the dark stuff,” Kara laughs. 

Lena grins back, before her face falls into something more serious. She thinks for a few seconds, tries to put her feelings in words, before she gives up and decides not to think anymore, to just say whatever feels right and honest, and worry about how it makes her look later. 

“I get angry about a lot of things. Stuff you’d expect, stuff you probably wouldn’t. I get angry that my parents are dead, I get angry that everyday I remember less and less about them no matter how hard I try to keep the few memories I have alive in my brain, I get angry that my adoptive mother never loved me the way she loved my brother, I get angry that my brother is in jail when he said he’d always protect me. Sometimes I get angry for totally fucked up reasons, like the fact that my best friend’s kid has a mom who loves her more than anything in the whole world just because I never had that. And then I get angry that people of colour are being shot by white police officers and nothing is being done about it, I get angry that women are being forced into arranged marriages, I get angry that it’s still a punishable offence in some places to hold hands or kiss or marry someone of the same sex, I get angry that there are kids without parents, I get angry that the capitalist system that I benefit so much from hurts so many people. I get angry about so much that sometimes I just genuinely don’t want to be on this planet anymore.” 

Lena stops, too overwhelmed to even continue listing all the things she’s angry about, her knife and fork clenched tightly in her hands, her jaw tense. Kara stares at her for what feels like a long time, her expression completely unreadable. The desire to apologise for her outburst comes and goes, and Lena reminds herself that Kara asked her to be honest so she has nothing to apologise for. She feels hot under Kara’s scrutiny, but she doesn’t look away. 

Eventually, Kara sighs softly and her gaze softens a little. “I keep wanting to tell you everything about me. And that scares me,” Kara says. “The more you tell me about who you are, the more I just want you to know who I am. It’s dangerous for both of us for me to feel this way.” 

“You can tell me anything, Kara.” 

“I know. That’s what’s so terrifying.” 

Lena doesn’t say anything else after that. She goes back to eating her dinner, appreciative of the silence that once again falls over them after such a heavy moment. She tries not to think about what Kara said, about her wanting to tell her everything, about her wanting to tell her who she really is. 

Which is hard when that’s literally all she can think about. 

“You know what you said earlier, about me being trustworthy?” Kara asks, after a while.

Lena nods, remembering their conversation in the coffee shop, taking the last bite of her food. “I meant it,” she says, after she swallows and puts down her knife and fork, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. 

“I know, but I guess it’s just easy to be a trustworthy person when you have no one to share anyone’s secrets with,” Kara laughs, softly to herself. 

Lena frowns. “That’s not why I said it.” 

“I know, but I was just thinking about it and the irony is kind of funny.” 

“I disagree. I think I’d rather you tell my secrets to a million people than have no one to tell them to.” 

“A million people?” Kara says, quirking her brow. 

Lena chuckles. “Well, within reason, of course. And maybe not a _million_. Besides, having a million friends would probably be exhausting.” 

“I’m sure someone like you is used to having a lot of friends, though,” Kara says, thoughtfully. “I mean, you’re a successful person, and you’re kind, and you’re beautiful. I’m sure plenty of people want to be your friend.” 

Lena rolls her eyes and tries her best not to just spontaneously combust over the fact that Kara called her beautiful. “You’d be surprised what having a murderous brother and psycho mother does to a person reputation. I’ve honestly never had a lot of friends, Kara. I mean, right now I only really have Sam, her daughter Ruby and you.” 

Kara smiles, softly. “I’m your friend?” 

Lena smiles back. “Of course you are. I don’t just get dinner and share secrets with anyone who yells at me in the street, you know.” 

Clearly this is the wrong thing to say because Kara doesn’t laugh and her smile disappears from her face as she looks down at her plate full of untouched food. The look on Kara’s face then makes Lena want to throw something at herself for not thinking more before she speaks. 

“Kara, that was a joke, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry,” Lena says, guilt sweeping through her. “You know I forgive you for that night, right? When I apologised for refusing to leave you alone in that bar, that was also me forgiving you for the way you reacted at the end of the night. You told me you didn’t need walking home and I didn’t listen and any way you reacted because of that isn’t on you, it’s on me.” 

Kara just shrugs and refuses to meet Lena’s eyes, still stating furiously at her plate. 

“We’re friends, okay? That means we can laugh about what happened in the past. That’s what friends do,” Lena tries again, tilting her head down to try and catch Kara’s eyes as she speaks. 

“I just don’t think the way I treated you is very funny, Lena. I could’ve hurt you,” Kara says, matter-of-factly, still avoiding Lena’s gaze. 

“But you didn’t,” Lena argues, resisting the urge to point out that they’ve had this conversation at least 5 times now because she’s sure it won’t be appreciated. “My point is that we’re friends. That’s all you need to take from this.” 

Finally, Kara looks up. “You’re the first friend I’ve had since I came here.” 

“What about Alex?” 

“She doesn’t count. She’s my sister. She _has_ to like me.” 

Lena chuckles at that, wondering silently to herself why Kara finds it so easy to refer to Alex as her sister, but so seemingly difficult to refer to Alex’s mother as her own. She keeps quiet also about the fact that Kara told her not too long ago that her sister hated her, because it feels like just one of those things she should pretend not to notice.

Smiling, Lena asks, “What about back home? Do you still talk to any of your friends there?” 

A heavy and empty expression crosses Kara’s face then, and Lena gets the feeling that once again, she’s said the wrong thing. Before she can apologise or question it, Kara stands up from the table. “It’s getting late. We should probably head out,” she says, dropping her napkin on the table. 

Lena doesn’t miss Kara’s casual use of the word “we”, where she’d normally use the word “I” and she hates that it makes her heart skip. 

“We can talk about something else, we don’t have to leave,” Lena says, once again cursing herself inside her head. 

Kara just shakes her head. “I should really get home.” 

“But you didn’t even eat anything.” 

Kara sighs, loudly, over-dramatically. “I’ll _let_ you walk me home this time, if we can just leave right now.” 

Lena laughs when she spots the faintest of smiles on Kara’s face, and then she’s standing up from the table quicker than she’s ever stood for anything in her life. Kara half chuckles and half frowns at her evident excitement before she pulls some money from her pocket, leaves it on the table and then heads for the exit, Lena following hastily behind her. 

 

The walk is quiet, a very comfortable quiet, and even though it’s still deathly cold outside, the bitter wind has died down significantly and as long as Lena keeps her coat tightly fastened and her hands in her pockets, it’s actually a pleasant night. Frost sparkles on the pavement and Lena finds herself wondering if maybe it will snow soon; she hasn’t had a white Christmas since she was a child but suddenly, something in her heart is aching for one. 

“Do you have any plans for the holidays?” Lena asks, breaking the silence as they walk. 

“Not really. Eliza has told me to go over for Christmas dinner, but obviously Alex will be there, so I can’t,” Kara replies, and Lena assumes that Eliza must be Alex’s mom, Kara’s adoptive mother. “I wouldn’t want to ruin their day anyway. I’m not really the most festive person in the world.” 

Lena laughs. “I would never have guessed.” 

Kara glares at her out of the corner of her eye, but there’s a smile on her face. “Fuck off,” she chuckles. 

They walk in silence a little longer after that before Kara asks, “What about you? Are you doing anything special?” 

“I always go over to Sam’s on Christmas Eve and stay a couple of days. I’ve had Christmas with her and Ruby for the last few years now.” 

Kara smiles. “That’s nice. I’m glad you have somewhere to go for Christmas. I was worried that you might spend Christmas alone.” 

“So you’re allowed to worry about me being alone at Christmas, but if I tell you that I worry about you, you’re going to tell me not to, right?” Lena asks, smiling knowingly at Kara. 

“I’ll be fine, Lena.” 

“Promise me you’ll call me if you’re not though, okay?” 

Kara stops walking and turns her head to look down at Lena then, their eyes meeting, and Lena swears she sees tears in Kara’s eyes. She looks at Lena for a long time, her warm breath visible in the freezing night air, the glow of the streetlights above making her skin look golden. Lena stares back at Kara, the eye contact not at all uncomfortable, and suddenly she can’t remember what her life was like before Kara came into it. 

“Lena… can I try something?” Kara asks, quiet enough that it’s a whisper. 

Lena nods, and smiles. “Anything.” 

“Promise me you won’t move, okay?” 

Lena nods again, her heart rate accelerating by what feels like 500 beats per second. “I promise,” Lena whispers back. 

For a long time, Kara doesn’t move either and Lena begins to worry that something is wrong. She’s about to ask if she’s okay, when she sees, feels and hears Kara inhale deeply, and then slowly, ever so slowly, she begins to move her hand towards Lena’s. Keeping her promise, Lena doesn’t move an inch, she even finds herself holding her breath, and all the while her eyes never leave Kara’s, not even for a second. Kara’s expression is so heavy, so focused, and Lena aches to know what she’s thinking. She’s pretty sure she’s never felt so alive, every single inch of her body feels hot and the muscles in her fingertips are just itching to reach out and meet Kara halfway. But she doesn’t, she just waits, because she’ll wait for Kara as long as she has to, for as long as Kara needs her to. 

When Kara’s fingers eventually brush over Lena’s, more gently and delicately than Lena has ever been touched in her whole life, she completely forgets that the rest of the world exists. 

Feeling Kara’s warm touch against her skin, finally, after so long fighting back her own desire to touch her, makes Lena’s heart skip inside her chest. She suddenly regrets holding her breath when a contented exhale threatens to escape her, but somehow she manages to keep it controlled and steady so that she doesn’t startle Kara into pulling back. 

When Kara’s fingers trace their way over the front of Lena’s hand and then around onto the underside of her wrist, softly dancing over smooth skin, Lena’s eyes flutter closed of their own accord. Kara hesitates then, for a few seconds, before Lena hears her take another deep breath. 

The next time Kara’s fingers move, it’s to intertwine themselves with Lena’s own. 

Lena lets herself enjoy the feeling of holding Kara’s hand for a minute or so, neither of them speaking, the only sounds the traffic in the distance and Lena’s heart pounding in her ears. When she slowly opens her eyes a little later, her green ones meeting Kara’s blue, she smiles. 

Lena almost cries when Kara smiles back. 

“I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do this,” Kara whispers, and Lena pretends not to notice when Kara’s eyes fill with tears. 

Softly, lightly, Lena squeezes Kara’s hand. 

Lena watches as Kara closes her eyes then, breathing deeply and evenly. “Can you just wait a second and then do that again, please?” Kara asks, quietly, her eyes still closed. 

Lena smiles again, waits, and then softly squeezes Kara’s hand. She feels Kara inhale deeply as she does so, almost as though she’s breathing into the touch itself. Kara’s skin is so warm, unfathomably warm considering the chill of the night, but Lena barely thinks to question it inside her mind. Instead, she just enjoys the peace and stillness of the moment before she very gently strokes her thumb over Kara’s knuckle. 

Kara’s breath falters, and then the tiniest, quietest sigh escapes her mouth before suddenly she’s pulling her hand back. 

Lena apologises automatically, but Kara’s shushes her. “It’s not you, Lena,” she whispers, smiling. “It’s just— That was lovely. But it’s a lot for me. And I don’t want to ruin anything by—“

“It’s okay. You don’t have to explain anything,” Lena smiles, interrupting Kara before she too can run away on a tangent of apologies. “And for the record, I thought it was lovely too.”

The last of Lena’s anxiety evaporates as quickly as it had come as Kara’s face breaks out into a smile, a gorgeous pink blush on her cheeks. Lena tucks that colour safely away into her heart, marks it down as her favourite.

“I’m going to tell you everything, Lena,” Kara whispers, her eyes shining. “I don’t know when, but I am.” 

Lena is too taken aback by Kara’s words to even notice when she starts walking again, too busy trying to calm the rapid beating of her heart a little, too focused on trying to stop the pricks she feels at the back of her eyes before they turn to tears, and when Kara turns around a couple of feet ahead and asks if she’s just going to stand there all night, Lena blushes softly and almost runs to catch up and cover the distance. 

The rest of the walk is quiet again, and every time Lena sneaks a look up at Kara from under her lashes, Kara is smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know what you think!! i love reading and replying to comments and every single one means so much to me <3


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not even going to address the amount of time that has passed since i updated this... a breakup, work, life in general, blah blah blah 
> 
> ANYWAY thank you so much to everyone who has kept thinking about this story and asking about this story and didn't give up on me even when i gave up on myself. it honestly means so much to me you have no idea. and that being said, i hope you enjoy this chapter where lots of your questions will start to be answered and i hope you can forgive me for being mia for like 5 months okay ily enjoy <3

Christmas with Sam and Ruby goes pretty much the same as always, and it’s that exact sameness and familiarity that Lena loves so much. There are never any unexpected visitors, never any sudden announcements, never any hushed changing of plans. There’s simply just the three of them, warmth, laughter and comfort, the same Christmas CD playing in the background, the same decorations on the tree, give or take a couple of new ones that Lena brings as gifts every year. 

Christmas Day begins at 6am with presents, Lena and Sam happy just to sit together on the couch with warm coffees, watching Ruby tear open her gifts on the living room floor, smiling, still half asleep, at her excitement. Sam has long since stopped getting mad at Lena for the sometimes extravagant gifts she buys for Ruby, has long since stopped being surprised that Lena manages to find absolutely everything Ruby had asked for, and between the two of them, every Christmas they conclude that Ruby is probably the most spoiled child in National City. After all, having a COO for a mom and a CEO for an aunt really doesn’t leave much to be desired for a child her age. And given that both Lena and Sam have strained familial relationships and unpleasant memories of childhood, it’s really no surprise that they want Ruby’s life to be the exact opposite of theirs. 

They share glances throughout the day, the same glances they share every year, glances that say things like _“it still kind of hurts, doesn’t it?”_ and _“yeah, but at least she’ll never know what it feels like”_. Those same glances are always followed by the same smiles. 

Lena’s so grateful for Sam, always, but it’s never more evident than it is at this time of year. The way she allows her to just fit into her family as though she’s always been there, makes Lena feel a kind of way that she’s never quite been able to put into words. It reminds her of before, before the Luthors adopted her, before her parents died. It reminds of when “I’ll be back soon,” was a promise that was never broken. 

After that, Lena and Sam exchange gifts, always opting for a couple of small and sentimental gifts, gifts that can only come from years of friendship. 

Once all gifts have been opened, Sam always makes Ruby clean up the mess she’s made while she makes breakfast, and Lena is normally instructed to just sit down and relax, two things which Lena isn’t particularly good at much to Ruby’s delight. So while Sam makes pancakes, Lena helps Ruby tidy the living room and Sam pretends not to notice what they’re up to. Breakfast is had slowly while watching a movie, normally Elf, The Polar Express or Arthur Christmas, and then Lena and Sam leave Ruby in the living room to finish watching it while the two of them head into the kitchen to make a start on dinner. 

Lena takes the role of head chef every year, and they fall into an almost work-like routine of preparing vegetables and stuffing and a vegetarian roast, finally enjoying a glass or two of their favourite wine once the clock hands swing past the 11 and they can consider it “acceptable” to start drinking. After that, Christmas becomes a lot less somber and a lot more lively, especially by their third glasses once all the food is cooking and the music is turned up and a very out of tune rendition of All I Want For Christmas Is You starts echoing down the hallway from Sam’s apartment. By the time dinner is ready and served, Lena and Sam are usually well on their way to being drunk, and Ruby always pretends to be embarrassed when really, they just make her laugh. 

Once food has been consumed and has diluted their blood alcohol levels a little and once everything has been cleared away into the dishwasher, a very serious game of charades begins. A very serious game of charades which quickly develops into chaos and leaves the three of them in stitches, their cheeks aching from laughter. 

Lena is _so bad_ at charades, and even though every year she swears she’s going to practice and then kick all of their asses next year, she never quite seems to get the hang of it and when Sam and Ruby guess, wrongly and for the 9th time in a row if she’s trying to mime Beauty and the Beast, Lena just groans and throws cushions at them before sitting in the corner sulking and refusing to speak to them. It takes all of 3 minutes for her to reconsider though, because once Sam brings out a huge box of chocolates and tells Lena she can have the first pick, all is forgiven. 

After the chocolates, and after they’ve laid on the couch together for 15 minutes trying to digest everything and stop feeling mildly nauseous from all the sweetness, Lena does what she always does, which is creep into the kitchen like she’s about to take part in a very secretive operation, before bouncing back into the living room and presenting them with her infamous creme brûlée’s that she makes especially for Christmas every year and hides at the back of the refrigerator. Even though Sam and Ruby are expecting it, their delight is just as real as always, their previous nausea completely forgotten because apparently Lena’s desserts are the best desserts in the whole universe. According to Ruby especially. 

Once night starts to draw in, they all change into fresh pyjamas, and Sam puts three hot chocolates into the microwave, a shot of whiskey in two of them and a sprinkle of marshmallows on top of the other for Ruby, and puts three blankets into the dryer for a couple of minutes so they’re warm and toasty before handing them out. They cuddle up on the same couch, all snuggled up together under the blankets, the curtains drawn and candles lit, and watch another movie. They choose one of the many made-for-TV Christmas movies, the ones that are vastly under appreciated and massively cheesy, and for the first time since morning, the apartment is quiet. 

Sam spends half the movie texting Alex, if the dopey grin on her face that Lena catches sight of multiple times is anything to go by, and then half an hour later before the movie ends, she falls asleep on Lena’s shoulder, breathing deeply, a mixture of food, whiskey and a day full of laughter finally taking its toll. 

Once the movie ends, Lena just smiles at Ruby and gestures for her to grab the remote and put on another. Ruby smiles happily, grateful that she’s allowed to stay up late, and then she snuggles into Lena’s other shoulder, Lena’s hand naturally stroking through her hair. Not too long later, Lena feels Ruby start to yawn and then a few minutes later, when she thinks she’s asleep, she presses a soft kiss to the top of her head. 

These moments are Lena’s favourite moments, but they’re also her least favourite moments. They’re the kind of moments that make her feel safe and full of comfort, but they’re also the moments that remind her of everything and everyone she’s lost. Softly, she rests her cheek against the top of Ruby’s head, still nonchalantly playing with her hair, and lets out a sigh, suddenly feeling tears prick at the backs of her eyes, the sound of her mother’s laugh and the sight of her father’s smile floating around in her memory. 

Grief is such a bitch, she thinks to herself. Always hits at the happiest of moments and reminds you what could have been. 

A tear rolls down her cheek before she can stop it. 

“You okay, Lena?” Ruby asks, whispering softly so as not to wake Sam. 

Lena startles a little as she feels the soft nudge of an elbow in her ribs. 

“I thought you were asleep,” Lena replies. 

Ruby shakes her head softly, before she asks again if Lena’s alright. 

“Oh, you know me, sweetheart. Me and Christmas,” she says, and it’s all the explanation Ruby needs. 

Slipping a warm hand into Lena’s, Ruby snuggles tighter against her, resting her head against her chest. “Love you,” she whispers, squeezing Lena’s hand. 

Another tear threatens to fall as Lena hugs Ruby closer, but it’s a warm and happy tear, not a tear of loss. “I love you too, darling,” she replies, feeling Ruby smile. 

 

Lena wakes with a start a few hours later, a slight ache in her neck from the way she’s been sleeping, some middle-of-the-night commercial on TV, the candles burnt out, her phone vibrating in her lap. She glances at the caller ID, and her heart flutters when she sees Kara’s name on the screen. Moving slowly so as not to wake Sam and Ruby, letting their heads fall softly against the back of the couch and then tucking a blanket around them, Lena pulls her own blanket around herself and quickly walks into the guest room and closes the door before she answers the phone. 

“Hi, Kara,” Lena says, quietly, sitting down on the bed. 

There’s a pause before Kara responds. “I’m sorry for calling so late.” 

Her voice sounds strange, almost as though she’s far away, and it makes Lena worry. “Don’t say sorry. What’s going on? Are you alright?” 

“I’m fine.” 

Lena knows she’s lying, so she doesn’t reply, she just waits. The silence stretches out for longer than she expects it to but eventually Kara speaks again. “It’s snowing, you know?” 

“Are you kidding?” Lena asks, excitedly. 

“Nope. Look out of your window.” 

Lena hurries to the window and peeks between the curtains, a small gasp escaping her when she sees the entire city coated in a soft flurry of snow. 

“It’s beautiful! I haven’t seen snow on Christmas Day since I was a child,” Lena says, her eyes wide at the sight of it all. Part of her wants to wake Sam and Ruby, but by the looks of it, the snow will definitely still be there come morning so she thinks better of it. 

Silence falls between them as Lena gazes out into the night, the soft sounds of the snowflakes hitting the window and the calming sound of Kara’s breathing through the phone making absolutely everything else seem irrelevant. 

“Lena, I— I’m— I didn’t—“ Kara’s voice cracks as she struggles to form a sentence, and it makes Lena’s chest clench. 

“Take your time, Kara. I’m here,” she whispers, softly. 

“I don’t even know why I called you.” 

“You called me because I told you that you could.” 

“I know but I shouldn’t have. I don’t deserve this, I don’t deserve you, and one day you’re going to realise that and I’m going to lose you like I lost everyone else I ever cared about and I—“ 

“Kara, where are you? Tell me where you are and I’ll come and get you and we’ll just go for a drive or something, okay?” Lena interrupts, the worry in her chest spilling out into her voice, already heading across the room to the closet for her jeans and coat. 

“You’re at Sam’s right?” Kara asks, her voice a little clearer than it had been before, which comforts Lena only a tiny amount. 

“Yes, but Sam and Ruby are asleep so it doesn’t matter. I can come and get you and we can go anywhere you like.” 

There’s a pause and Lena can practically hear Kara arguing with herself inside her head. She can picture her perfectly, fighting every instinct that’s telling her to hang up the phone. The image of that has Lena saying Kara’s name again. 

“I don’t want to be on my own anymore,” Kara whispers and Lena wants to cry. 

“You don’t have to be. You aren’t. Just tell me where you are.” 

“Do you wanna come over?” Kara asks. “I’ll text you my address. You don’t have to knock or anything. I’ll know when you’re here.” 

With that, the line disconnects. 

Lena panics instinctively, the room suddenly feeling much too quiet without the sounds of Kara in her ear, and the seconds feel longer and longer the more time goes by with no text from her. 

Lena’s brain imagines endless scenarios as she finishes getting dressed, each worse than the last, in all of which Kara is alone and needs her help. It’s an automatic response, something her brain does completely involuntarily whenever anything happens, almost as though it has to imagine every possible outcome, no matter how awful, before it can start to think rationally and come up with a solution. She’s just lacing up her boots when finally, her phone vibrates and a new message appears on the screen. 

There’s no text, just a pinned location and an apartment number, a 15 minute walk away. Lena considers taking her car but given the snow, she figures it will be safer and quicker to go on foot. She quickly ties up her hair and then zips up her coat, before heading out of the bedroom. She closes the door quietly and tiptoes across the room, her heart clenching at the sight of Sam and Ruby who have found each other in their sleep and are now cuddled up together. Smiling, Lena scribbles a quick note onto the whiteboard on the fridge letting them know where she’s going because she knows Sam will worry if she doesn’t, before she opens the front door and heads out. 

 

Lena manages to do the 15 minute walk in 8 and a half minutes, ignoring how icy cold her feet are even inside her boots and how the thickness of her jacket is no match for the bitter chill in the air as the snow continues to fall, her mind focused only on getting to Kara. Only when her phone vibrates to tell her that her destination is on the left in 50 yards and Lena sees a light on in a window on the 7th floor, the only light she can see on in the whole building which she guesses is Kara’s, does her heart rate start to calm a little. 

Heading up the stone steps to the main door, Lena reaches out to press the intercom but before she can, the door is already clicking open. She glances back up at the window expecting to see Kara watching her, but there’s no one there and the light has been turned off. Lena shivers a little, but only because of the chill in the air and lets herself into the building. 

When she reaches Kara’s floor and finds her door, she knocks, gently. 

“It’s open,” Kara’s voice calls from inside. 

Lena takes a few seconds to brush the few remaining snowflakes from her coat before she lets herself into Kara’s apartment, closing the door gently behind her. 

Kara’s standing across the room, her back to Lena, looking out of the window. The room is mostly dark, but the streetlights outside cast a small orange glow across the room, and Lena can see that Kara’s hair is wet. She wonders aloud if Kara had been outside in the snow. 

“I was up on the roof earlier,” Kara replies, her voice small and void of any emotion. “I like it up there.” 

Lena doesn’t reply, because there isn’t really much she can say to that. 

Lena uses the silence to glance around Kara’s apartment. There isn’t much to look at, if she’s honest and even though it’s dark Lena can tell that Kara probably isn’t here much. There’s a couple of couches, a dining table with mismatched chairs, a small kitchen area in the corner and two doors across the room which she assumes lead to a bedroom and a bathroom. There’s no TV, no pictures on the walls, no magnets on the fridge. The only personal touches Lena can see are an easel in the corner, a relatively large one that looks expensive and several piles of books by the couch. It’s also freezing inside, as though the heating has never even been turned on, and Lena tucks her hands into her pockets. 

“You paint?” Lena asks after awhile. 

“I used to. Back home. But not so much anymore,” Kara says, still looking out of the window. 

“What do you like to paint?” 

“Everything, I guess. People. Places. Feelings. Whenever I’m painting, I’m not… thinking.” 

Lena smiles. “Are you good?” 

“I used to be. It doesn’t feel the same anymore. Ever since I came here everything I paint looks the same. Well, almost everything. There’s really only one thing I can paint right now that doesn’t look empty and full of pain.” 

Lena waits for Kara to elaborate further on that, but when she doesn’t Lena simply asks, “Are you okay?” 

Kara’s response is instant. “Not really.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“I’m working on that. Will you ask me some more questions while I think?” 

Lena moves quietly to sit down on the couch, the one furthest away from Kara just to give her some space even though all she wants to do is wrap her arms around her tightly and never let go. 

“What else did you like to do back home?” Lena asks. 

“A different question,” Kara interrupts before the question is even out of Lena’s mouth. 

“What else do you know about the probability paradox?” Lena tries, remembering their conversation in the bar what feels like millenniums ago and just yesterday at the same time. 

She hears Kara chuckle, softly. “Do you wanna talk about the actual quadratic formula used to calculate the probability of an event taking place, or just my thoughts?” 

“Just your thoughts. I already know the formula,” Lena smiles. 

“I think it doesn’t matter what you _think_ will happen. I think it doesn’t even matter what you _calculate_ will happen. I think every possible outcome just happens anyway.” 

“The Multiverse Theory?”

“There’s nothing but space out there. Literal infinite space, infinite cosmic patches. Particles can only perform in a finite number of specific ways, as you know. So at some point along the space-time continuum, they have to start repeating. And given that the continuum is endless, I think it’s naive to think otherwise.” 

Lena considers Kara’s words. “But we know that the universe’s beginning was around 14 billion years ago. That’s finite too.” 

“Maybe so. But since then, everything else just keeps going. Exponentially. And it’s within the everything else that it happens,” Kara says, tracing her finger through the condensation on the window in haphazard ways. “Ask me something else.” 

“What were you doing up on the roof?” 

Kara turns then, and slowly faces Lena. “It’s easier to think up there. Down here my thoughts get all complicated and overwhelming, but up there it’s quiet and I can make sense of them.” 

“Weren’t you cold? It’s snowing pretty hard out.” 

Kara hesitates only slightly before she responds. “No. I don’t feel it.” 

Given that Lena had already assumed as much the other day during their walk from the park to the coffee shop, she doesn’t comment. 

“Have you been up there all night?” She asks instead. 

Kara shakes her head. “I was just flying around the city before that,” Kara shrugs. “But at some point, it stopped being enough to distract me from how alone I felt. And that’s when I called you.” 

Lena doesn’t ask whether Kara means she flew around the city just figuratively or if she means it literally, and Kara doesn’t elaborate. She just watches her intently, and Lena wants to ask what she’s looking for. When Kara lets out a tiny, almost incredulous laugh, Lena raises her brow in question. Kara sighs and sits down on the floor, her back to the wall, resting her elbow on her knee and then her head in her hand. “I keep dropping little hints and watching your reactions. Waiting for the moment you stand up and run.” 

“I’m not running anywhere,” Lena smiles. 

“Yet,” Kara argues. 

Lena chuckles softly. “We’ll see.”

There’s a long silence then, a silence so long it feels like hours but is probably only minutes, Lena’s mind abuzz with what almost feels like the truth directly from Kara’s mouth, but not in a bad way, just in a way that has a thousand questions forming on the tip of her tongue. 

“Have you ever heard of Krypton, Lena?” Kara suddenly asks, meeting Lena’s eyes across the dark room. 

Lena shakes her head. “I haven’t, sorry.” 

Kara shrugs, as though it’s nothing. “Can I show you something?” 

“Of course.” 

Kara stands up then and turns back to face the window, and Lena follows suit and heads towards her, standing close enough to Kara that she can feel the heat radiating from her body but still far enough away that Kara completely has her own space. 

Lena watches as Kara clears the condensation from the window with the palm of her hand, and then she tries to follow Kara’s gaze past the glass and into the night sky. 

“You won’t be able to see it but there’s a star right there—“ Kara pauses to point with her index finger, but Lena can’t see anything past the thick snow clouds. “and just to the right of it, is Krypton.”

Lena turns her head slowly to look at Kara, watches as the eerie glow of the streetlight casts shadows across her face. 

Kara doesn’t move, her gaze stays focused out of the window, almost as though she can see right through the clouds, right through the atmosphere and up into space. Almost as though she’s looking directly at Krypton. 

“What’s so special about Krypton?” Lena asks, but subconsciously she already knows the answer. 

Kara meets Lena’s eyes then, and her gaze is heavy and soft all at the same time. Her skin is golden in the streetlight, and Lena just wants to spend the rest of her life counting the freckles on her cheeks. 

“Krypton is— _was_ my h-home. Krypton is where I’m from.” 

There it is, the truth, nothing but a few words dancing around in the cold air of Kara’s apartment. But suddenly all Lena can think about is the tiny scar by Kara’s brow that she can’t believe she’s never noticed before. She knows it’s really not what she should be thinking about right now, but she can’t help it. One tiny, tiny blemish in Kara’s otherwise effervescently perfectly complexion. 

“Kara, what happened to your head?” 

Kara blinks hard, twice. “Excuse me?” 

“You have a scar. Right there.” Lena slowly moves her hand up, almost close enough to touch but not quite, and points at the scar by Kara’s left brow. 

“Oh.” Kara reaches up and touches it herself almost instinctively with her finger, her eyelashes fluttering as though she’s embarrassed. 

Lena smiles, softly. “What’s wrong?” 

Kara exhales, and Lena knows that had it been lighter in the room, she’d have seen her blushing. “Nothing. I’m just still getting used to you noticing things, that’s all.”

And then, a moment later, Kara laughs. 

Lena smiles at the sound before she asks, “What’s funny?” 

“I just told you I’m from another planet, and you’re asking me about a scar on my face?” 

“Do you not want me to ask?” Lena responds, smiling harder. 

Kara stops laughing then and stares at her, her expression one of nothing but complete bewilderment. “You don’t make any sense, Lena.” 

“Neither do you, but do you see me complaining?” Lena asks, softly, still smiling. 

Kara smiles back, for a long moment, but only a moment all the same. Her gaze doesn’t leave Lena’s, even when most of the softness leaves it, leaves only what looks like pain. “Krypton exploded. 25 years ago, almost to the day. And given that Krypton is 27.1 light years away from Earth, I can still see it. The light from its explosion hasn’t reached here yet.” 

Lena doesn’t speak, because there’s nothing to be said. Kara’s eyes dance over Lena’s face, almost as though she’s trying to memorise every single inch of it. 

A few minutes pass before Kara speaks again, her eyes still roaming Lena’s face. 

“Sometimes I think that if I could just fly up there really fast, then it might still be there. But it’s not. There’s nothing left. It’s gone.” 

Another pause. Lena feels her heart skip a beat. Painfully, heavily. She wants to stop looking into Kara’s eyes because her pain is so evident and Lena can feel herself beginning to shiver under the weight of it, but she can’t bring herself look away. 

“When you asked me about probability, Lena, and I told you that I believe in the Multiverse Theory, it’s not because I want to. It’s because I _have_ to. I could’ve debated with you all night long about it, but I could tell that it isn’t a theory you believe in and I know you would have presented me with facts and figures and paradoxical theories that I just couldn’t argue with. I know you would have made me change my mind because you’re so brilliant, Lena. But that’s why I changed the subject. Because I couldn’t have you change my mind. I have to believe that there’s another place out there where Krypton survives because I can’t bear it otherwise. And when I told you that the space-time continuum is infinite, I know that because I’ve seen it. I _felt_ it. I was _stuck_ in it for for 24 fucking years and I felt every single fucking second of it. My mom told me I wouldn’t, she promised me I’d sleep the whole time but she lied to me. Something happened to me out there, I still don’t know what happened, but it was so dark and I was so alone. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do _anything_. I was just alone. Stuck. Infinity is a huge number, but I fucking felt it, Lena. For 24 fucking years.”

Lena can’t make much sense of what Kara is saying because she isn’t filling in any of the gaps for her and then every now and again Kara says something that isn't even English, isn't like any language Lena has ever heard in fact, but she doesn't say anything still because Lena gets the feeling that this is the first time Kara has been able to talk about what happened to her since arriving on Earth and she isn’t about to interrupt her for anything. So she just listens. And Kara just talks. 

“And then suddenly I arrive here, and I’m not a day older than I was when I left Krypton, which is fucking impossible because I know I was stuck up there for a long fucking time, and I have all these abilities and can do all these things here that I could never do back home and I’m so strong and I’m scared all the time that I’m going to hurt someone or something because it’s so hard to control everything and Alex told me that it has something to do with Earth’s yellow sun and that I can learn how to be normal eventually but it doesn’t make any sense. Nothing has made any sense ever since my mom sent me away. Nothing has made any fucking sense since I—“ Kara stops then, dead in the middle of her sentence, the sudden pause startling Lena slightly, and finally her eyes leave Lena’s face. 

The silence that follows is unlike any silence Lena has ever experienced. 

There’s not a single sound, besides the thudding of Lena’s heart. There’s a sob threatening at the back of her throat but she swallows it down, over and over and over. 

Eventually, when the painful silence is too much to bear, Lena tries to speak. 

“Kara I—“ 

She stops, because there isn’t really anything she can say. 

Kara meets her eyes, and the sight of them makes the sob in Lena’s throat finally escape. She pulls her hand over her mouth, wills herself to be quiet. 

“I’m so sorry, Lena,” Kara whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry I couldn’t—“

Before another apology can leave Kara’s lips, Lena holds out her hand. 

“If you want to hold my hand, Kara, you can.” 

Only when Kara takes it, slowly, painfully slowly, and oh so delicately, as though Lena is made of glass, does Kara begin to cry. 

And all Lena can do as Kara cries, the weight of an entire planet collapsing and cascading from inside her heart, is be there. 

Outside, the snow continues to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a little piece of dialogue towards the end here that was inspired by [this](https://twitter.com/gaviadraws/status/1062903853820059648) beautiful fanart. you should all go and check it out ((and cry))
> 
> please let me know what you think!!! i love reading and replying to comments and every single one means so much to me <3


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the softest chapter i've ever written you have been warned

Kara cries for 56 minutes. 

Lena counts them all silently inside her head, holding her hand the entire time. Even in the midst of what must be the most unimaginable pain, Kara’s hold on Lena’s hand is gentle. So gentle. Lena wonders over and over if Kara is lying about how strong she is. Because surely a person who holds her this gently cannot be strong enough to hurt anyone. Surely. 

Nobody has ever held Lena like this. 

The list of people who have held Lena, ever, is small. Since her parents died, she hasn’t exactly gravitated easily towards people. Of course, there was Sam eventually, and Ruby too, and Lex in the beginning. But that’s where the list starts and ends. 

Until Kara. 

Thinking of the days and months and years Lena went without being touched with love, with affection, at all really, now makes her think again of all the years Kara spent alone. She thinks about her being sent away, scared and confused and alone, knowing she’d never see the people she loved again, knowing she’d never get to walk on her home planet again, knowing that her life would never be the same again. She thinks about her being trapped in the middle of infinite space with nothing to do and no one to talk to, with only herself and the quiet and the darkness and the emptiness, not knowing if she would ever escape, and suddenly the sob that Lena keeps trying to fight off is back and all she wants to do is squeeze Kara’s hand but she doesn’t know if that’s what Kara needs, so she doesn’t. She just stands there, her hand in Kara’s, being held just as much as she’s holding, to the point where she’s not even sure who is comforting who. 

Lena doesn’t move for 56 minutes. Her back aches and her feet ache and her arm aches from standing so still and so quiet for so long, but still she stays. She counts the seconds between Kara’s sobs and eventually, they begin to subside.

When Kara speaks, a little while later, it’s almost as if the last hour hadn’t happened and it takes Lena awhile to catch up. 

“Chicken pox,” Kara says, still holding Lena’s hand. 

Lena blinks a few times, confused. 

Kara smiles, and the sight of her smile makes Lena want to cry because Kara is incredible. “My scar. I got it when I had chicken pox when I was a kid. Or some version of chicken pox at least, because from what I’ve read, chicken pox is not exactly the same as it was on Krypton but it’s very similar. And there isn’t a translation in English anyway. Just... itchy spots. And the scar comes from before my mom put gloves on me to stop me scratching. Of all the places I could get a scar, it just had to be on my face.” 

Lena wants to smile back at her but it gets lost in all of the many emotions she’s currently experiencing and the words that fall out of her mouth next take her completely by surprise. “You’re perfect,” she whispers, and then she knows she should feel embarrassed but it never comes. 

She knows it’s probably the wrong thing to say but she also can’t imagine a universe where Kara doesn’t know how perfect she thinks she is. 

Kara doesn’t reply, she just looks at Lena like maybe it’s the first time she’s ever really seen her. All the while, she doesn’t let go of her hand. 

“Can I show you something?” Kara asks, her voice quiet and laced with uncertainty. 

Lena is still struggling too much with her emotions to reply, so instead she just nods. 

Kara looks down at their hands then, almost as though she’s only just realising that she’s still holding onto something. Lena watches Kara’s face, watches her consider letting go, sees her deliberately slow breathing as she thinks about it. She feels Kara’s fingers twitch, as though she’s testing how it would feel to let go. 

It’s so quiet. 

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” Kara whispers. 

Lena shakes her head and finally finds her voice. “Not at all.” 

Kara doesn’t look entirely convinced but she doesn’t let go. “Just tell me if I do. Please tell me if I do.” 

“I will. I promise. You’re doing great.” 

Kara stares at their hands a little longer, and Lena just stares at Kara’s face, the softness of her features that are entirely softer now that she knows the pain behind them. She’s so captivated by them that she almost misses the moment where Kara squeezes her hand. It’s so slight, so barely there, but it’s a squeeze all the same. 

Kara’s eyes meet Lena’s again, like she’s asking a question. 

Lena smiles in response, her insides fluttering, feeling lighter than she has in a really long time, and lighter still when Kara’s lips curl up into the tiniest smile too. Then, Kara leads Lena across the room, over to the corner where her easel is and Lena just wishes the walk was longer, wishes the walk was a thousand miles long because now she finally knows what it feels like to walk by Kara holding onto her hand, she wants to do it forever. 

“I’ve never shown anyone my paintings. Even back home it was kind of a private thing. But ever since the day we met, whenever I pick up a brush, all that comes out of the end of it is you,” Kara says, her voice soft and quiet, almost as though she’s embarrassed. “I told you that I’ve only been able to paint one thing that doesn’t look sad and empty. That thing is you.” 

Kara leans over and flips to the first page on the pad that’s set up on her easel. It takes Lena a little while to see the painting given how dark it is, and she knows she could ask Kara to turn on the light but she doesn’t want to ruin the peace and comfort that has somehow wrapped itself around them in the darkness. She figures Kara doesn’t need the light to see anyway. 

When her eyes finally adjust, Lena half wishes they hadn’t because suddenly she’s crying and it’s embarrassing because Kara will probably misunderstand her tears and think she’s done something wrong. 

On the one page alone, there are six paintings, all of Lena. 

Lena in her black dress and red lipstick, completely distinguishable as the way she looked on the night they met. Her eyes are wide and full of fear, her lips contorted into what looks like the start of a scream and Lena hates seeing her face like that so she quickly adverts her eyes to the next image. 

The next one is slightly different. It’s her again, but she’s in her office this time and the painting is of her sitting at her desk, her head in her hand, the way she looks when it’s nearing the end of the day and she can hear the bottle of wine in her fridge calling her name. The painting is done from behind, her long black ponytail pulled over one shoulder, the cream skin of her neck, the crinkles in her dress shirt as she leans over her desk, her fingertips, painted green that day, resting against her cheek. Even though her face isn’t visible, she looks exhausted. A shiver runs through Lena when she realises it’s from the day in her office when she could’ve sworn she saw someone in the reflection of her mirror at the window behind her. She’d been so scared, so creeped out that day, but it had just been Kara all along. Which really, she’d always kind of known.

Kara must sense her shiver because she sighs. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you that day. I had to make sure you were okay. I’m sorry that I scared you.” 

Lena shakes her head. “You didn’t, it’s okay,” she lies. 

“Lena, I know I did. I have extremely good hearing, you know? I could hear your pulse and your heartbeat from the other side of town. I left quickly as soon as I thought you’d seen me and I hoped that maybe I was wrong but your body said otherwise. And I’m so sorry.” 

Lena smiles. “I forgive you.” 

She smiles even harder when Kara sighs in relief. 

The third image is darker than the other two. It’s of Lena standing in the street, her jacket zipped up to her neck and her purse over one shoulder and there are what looks like a hundred pairs of eyes surrounding her, eyes that are yellow and red and all angry. Lena struggles to place this one until suddenly she realises that it’s from when she had walked home from work that evening, the evening where Kara had yelled at her for being alone in the dark where she could get hurt. The painting is clearly just from Kara’s perspective, the angry eyes right there ready to hurt Lena for being so foolish, for not caring about her own safety. What finally makes Lena start to cry though, is when she spots the one pair of eyes that are different to all of the others. 

They’re blue eyes. Slightly bigger than the others. Empty, blue eyes that look so sad. They’re Kara’s eyes.

“The next one is nicer,” Kara offers. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.” 

Lena shrugs off Kara’s apology. “You know I’ve always hated the way you see yourself. Like you’re some kind of monster.” 

“You were scared that night, Lena. I know you were. And you had every right to be. I don’t want you to feel bad for me.” 

Lena tries to argue but Kara cuts her off. “It’s okay. I understand. You don’t have to try and make me feel better. Just look at the next one.” 

So Lena does. The next one is at the grocery store, and it makes Lena laugh because she looks ridiculous. She’s wearing a pair of leggings and a white t-shirt that says “i need space” in an awful comic sans font and there’s a cartoon rocket underneath it. Her cart is full of vegetables and she’s holding a box of pasta, staring intently at the back of it, chewing on her lip in concentration. 

“That’s my favourite shirt,” Lena chuckles, wiping the tears from her cheeks. 

Kara smiles. “You looked so different that night. I’d never seen you like that before. If I flipped over these pages, you’d see that I draw you in that outfit a lot.” 

“Nobody really sees me like that. Except Sam and Ruby. I don’t have to be CEO Lena around them.” 

Kara smiles again, but she doesn’t comment. Lena moves onto the next painting on the page. In this one, she’s at the park and her cheeks are red, her long eyelashes resting on her cheeks as she looks down, a soft smile on her face. There are 2 hands at the edge of the drawing, reaching out for Lena warmly, and she recognises the rings on one of the hands as the same rings Sam wears. She can practically see the image come to life in front of her, can practically see herself reaching out for Sam’s hand and laughing at something Ruby says. So far, this one is her favourite of Kara’s paintings. Somehow she’s perfectly captured in her brush strokes the lightness Lena feels inside whenever she’s around Sam. It makes her want to cry for a completely different reason. 

“I like this one a lot,” Lena says, reaching out to trace her finger over the painting. 

“I watched you for a long time before you saw me that day,” Kara replies. “You looked happy. Watching you with Sam and Ruby almost made me smile.” 

“Almost?” 

“Well, I did smile, actually. One of my first Earth smiles. But then I got sad again so it didn’t last long.” 

Lena sighs and the desire to squeeze Kara’s hand is back. Instead she opts for just lightly and delicately moving her index finger to stroke minutely along the side of Kara’s. Back and forth, just once. Just enough for Kara to know that Lena is there, but not too much that it scares her into possibly pulling back. “I know,” Lena says, when she’s sure Kara isn’t going to let go of her hand. “I saw that. I was thinking about how much it sucks that some kids have parents who love them and some kids don’t. Being with them makes me think about that a lot.” 

Kara doesn’t say anything in response, she just stares at the painting, and if Lena didn’t know about Kara’s superhearing now, she’d be almost convinced that Kara hadn’t heard her speaking at all. 

In last painting on the page, Lena is dancing. She’s wearing a red dress and her hair is falling out of her ponytail in wispy strands around her face. There’s a drink in her hand and she’s laughing, her eyes closed in what looks like bliss. What’s so striking about the picture though, is that Lena doesn’t seem to be standing on the floor. Below her feet, Kara has painted the night sky, stars and planets and space. 

“I don’t even know what I was trying to say with that one,” Kara admits. “It just happened.” 

Lena smiles. “It’s beautiful. All of them are, Kara. You’re an incredible artist. Thank you so much for showing them to me.” 

Kara shrugs. “I’ll show you the rest another time. There’s a lot.” 

That makes Lena want to laugh, but in the end, she doesn’t. She just smiles again. 

Kara walks them back over to the window, eventually. It’s still snowing outside which surprises Lena because she hasn’t felt cold at all since Kara took hold of her hand. 

There’s a silence, both of them just thinking. There’s been a lot of talking tonight and Lena wonders if Kara is tired. She doesn’t know what time it is but it has to be late. Or early, perhaps. 

“Kara?” Lena whispers after awhile. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m so sorry. About what happened to you.” 

Kara smiles, but it’s empty of warmth. “Me too.” 

Another silence. 

Lena spends it wondering what Kara’s life what like on Krypton, spends it wondering how she’s ever going to let go of her hand. 

“I don’t hate Alex, you know?” Kara says, suddenly. “I know I said I did, but I don’t. I just get mad at her. She doesn’t understand. And I know you don’t either but it almost feels like you do sometimes. But Alex isn’t like that. She never has been. She’s always tried to help me, but in the wrong way most of the time.” 

Lena doesn’t reply, she just lets Kara think, gives her the space and the silence and the room to think and say whatever she wants to say. 

“I know it was hard for Alex when I came here, and I know that despite that, despite how much her life had to change because of me, she’s only ever tried to help me. But she says all the wrong things sometimes. She tries to make me forget about Krypton, about who I was there because she doesn’t understand that that’s not who I _was_. It’s who I still _am_. I’m not Kara Danvers. I don’t know who Kara Danvers is. And I resent Alex for trying to make me forget about Kara Zor El. Kara Zor El didn’t die with Krypton; she’s right here! So why should I have to try and forget about her the same way I have to try and forget about my parents and my friends? I hate Alex for trying to force this human identity on me. It hurts every time someone uses my full name here, because it’s the _wrong_ name and that’s just not who I am! I know it’s just a name and it’s insignificant really but-“

Lena reaches out, slowly, and places her hand on Kara’s wrist, ever so lightly and just for a second before she pulls it back. “It’s not insignificant, Kara. It’s okay to be angry.” 

Kara looks at Lena, meets her eyes with a soft gaze, a gaze much softer than she had expected. “I love her, though. Despite everything, I love her. I’ve never had a sister before and I can’t help hoping that one day I’ll find one in Alex. I just don’t want to have to forget about Krypton and I don’t know how to talk to Alex about it without getting angry. It’s so hard to talk to anyone.” Kara pauses then. “Except you. It’s so easy to talk to you now, Lena.” 

Lena smiles, her eyes burning with tears again. “Thank you, Kara,” she whispers. 

“I know I haven’t made much sense tonight…” Kara says, trailing off into thought. 

“It’s okay. I’m a smart woman,” Lena grins. 

Kara laughs then, her fingers naturally squeezing around Lena’s as she does so and a single tear finally falls from the corner of Lena’s eye when Kara doesn’t panic at that. She wonders if Kara even noticed her grip effortlessly tightening around Lena’s as she let herself laugh. She decides not to mention it either way. 

“I meant what I said the other night, about how I’m going to tell you everything one day,” Kara whispers. 

“There’s no rush,” Lena responds, smiling. 

Kara smiles back. 

A silence falls around them again, and Lena begins to wonder if silence will always be theirs like this. There have been so many, each one meaning something and nothing at all, and she hopes they’ll always have them. 

She stifles a yawn, suddenly realising how late it is and how little sleep she’d had before coming here. Kara seems to notice and Lena wonders if she can hear the exhaustion in her bones.

“You’re tired,” Kara says, simply. 

“It’s really late. We should probably get some sleep. I can stay if you like, or I can go and we can just talk tomorrow if you want some time alone,” Lena says, her eyes feeling heavy.

“I don’t sleep much here,” Kara admits, her shoulders rising and falling on a shrug. 

“You don’t sleep?” 

Kara shrugs again. “It’s not that I don’t sleep, I guess. It’s just that I generally don’t do it down here. I prefer to sleep up there,” she says, moving closer to the window overlooking the city and gesturing towards the sky. 

 

There’s so much snow now. 

Lena moves slowly to stand by her, closer than she’s ever stood. Not quite close enough that she’s touching Kara anywhere else besides their joined hands, but close enough that she’s sure Kara can feel her presence, and know that she’s not alone. “Why?” Lena asks, quietly. 

She feels rather than hears Kara sigh. “I just... it feels closer to home, I guess. Which makes no sense, I know, because my home doesn’t exist anymore but I...” She trails off, and then rests the fingertips of the hand that isn’t holding Lena’s against the glass on the window. Lena wonders how much restraint it takes for Kara to do that without shattering the window into a hundred pieces. “Up there, I swear sometimes I can still feel them. I stand here and I can still see Krypton and I can pretend it hasn’t gone yet. I can hover up there and pretend that everything is still there. My parents. My friends. The park I learned to ride my bike in, the school I learned to read and write in, the first girl I ever had a crush on, the box of candy I kept hidden under my bed that my mom didn’t know about. I can’t describe it in words, not properly, but it’s all up there. Somewhere. And I swear I can feel it all when I sleep up there. Alex tells me that it isn’t healthy, that I need to let go, that Earth is my home now and the longer I distance myself from it, the harder it’s going to be to adjust. But it’s already so hard. And I don’t _want_ to adjust. And Alex doesn’t understand what it’s like for me. No one does. No one understands the loneliness. No one understands the emptiness... I hate it here, Lena.” 

Kara whispers those last few words, and Lena’s eyes fill with tears, burning hot tears, and then she reaches out, slowly, so slowly moving her other hand towards Kara’s, ready to pull back at any moment if Kara needs her to. When Kara doesn’t react, Lena simply rests her hand on top of Kara’s, her palm against the warm skin of the front of Kara’s hand. 

Kara doesn’t pull away. 

Something settles inside Lena when Kara doesn’t pull away. 

Lena doesn’t say anything. She knows there aren’t any words Kara wants to hear anyway. 

Kara is staring at the night sky, and Lena is staring at Kara, and they’re both together and alone at the same time. 

“You make it easier though,” Kara whispers after awhile. 

“Hmm?” 

“I don’t hate earth as much now you’re here. It’s easier to believe that I won’t always hate it here now that I have you.” 

Tears prick the backs of Lena’s eyes again as she considers Kara’s words, considers the fact that Kara believes that she has her, believes that she has her even though years of loneliness and emptiness and unimaginable grief must be telling her otherwise. 

The one word that Lena wants to whisper back doesn’t make it out of her mouth. _Not yet_ , she says to herself. _Not out loud just yet_. 

Instead she just thinks it. Over and over and over as she and Kara gaze out of the window at the city covered in snow. 

Just one word. 

_Always_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know what you think!! i love reading and replying to comments and every single one means so much to me <3


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